LAURA A. BRANIGAN, CLASSIC SONGS 'FOREVER YOUNG'

Laura Branigan

What have in common Jennifer Rush, Céline Dion, Umberto Tozzi and Alphaville? All of them are great singers with incredible hits and all of them have been versioned by one of the most popular voices of the 1980's and 1990's, Laura Branigan, the American singer who became famous for covering these artists with her own versions full of energy and passion.

The Grandma, who is a great consumer of Coke, always remembers the first time that she watched the spot Coke is it! where Laura Branigan sang the main song.

Laura Branigan died on a day like today in 2004. She was too young to die but she will be forever young. The Grandma thinks that the best way to pay homage to her is talking about her career and her life.

Laura Ann Branigan (July 3, 1952-August 26, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and actress. Her signature song, the platinum-certified 1982 single Gloria, stayed on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 for 36 weeks, then a record for a female artist, peaking at No. 2.

It also reached number one in Australia and Canada. In 1984, she reached number one in Canada and Germany with the U.S. No. 4 hit Self Control. She also had success in the United Kingdom with both Gloria and Self Control making the Top 10 in the UK Singles Chart.

Seeing her greatest level of success in the 1980s, Branigan's other singles included the Top 10 hit Solitaire (1983), the U.S. AC chart number one How Am I Supposed to Live Without You (1983), the Australian No. 2 hit Ti amo (1984), and The Power of Love (1987). Her most successful album was 1984's platinum-selling Self Control.

More information: Laura Branigan Online

She also contributed songs to motion picture and television soundtracks, including the Grammy and Academy Award-winning Flashdance soundtrack (1983), and the Ghostbusters soundtrack (1984).

In 1985, she won the Tokyo Music Festival with the song The Lucky One. Her chart success began to wane as the decade closed and after her last two albums Laura Branigan (1990) and Over My Heart (1993) garnered little attention, she generally retired from public life for the rest of the 1990s.

She began returning to performing in the early 2000s, most notably appearing as Janis Joplin in the off-Broadway musical Love, Janis.

Laura Branigan

As she was recording new music and preparing a comeback to the music industry, she died at her home in August 2004 from a previously undiagnosed cerebral aneurysm.

In 2019, Gloria was adopted by the NHL's St. Louis Blues as their unofficial victory song, leading to the song entering ice hockey lore as an unlikely championship anthem. Branigan's legacy manager Kathy Golik embraced the trend and traveled to St. Louis to publicly represent Branigan among the Blues fanbase during the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs, later stating her belief that Branigan and Gloria will forever be intertwined with the Blues and the city of St. Louis.

Laura Ann Branigan was born on July 3, 1952 in the New York City suburban village of Brewster, New York.

Branigan attended Byram Hills High School from 1966 to 1970, starring in the high school musical The Pajama Game in her senior year.

Between 1970 and 1972 she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, and worked as a waitress.

In 1972 she met acoustic guitarist Walker Daniels and his future wife Sharon Storm, and acoustic guitarist Chris Van Cleave, forming the folk-rock band Meadow, named as a good place for Paul McCartney's band Wings to land in.

In 1973 the group, with bass player Bob Valdez, released their debut album The Friend Ship, featuring the singles When You Were Young, and Cane and Able, which featured the hook line Throw away your cane and you are able. The record was not properly promoted and never re-released. The band broke up, after which Walker Daniels committed suicide. Branigan preferred not to discuss her involvement with Meadow publicly.

More information: Moda Divas Magazine

During the years after Meadow broke up, Branigan had various jobs, including a stint as one of Leonard Cohen's backup singers for his European tour in April–August 1976.

In December 1978 after meeting him at a party in Manhattan, New York City earlier in the year, Branigan married Larry Ross Kruteck (1936–1996), a lawyer, who died of colon cancer on June 15, 1996.

In 1979, after a chance meeting with manager Sid Bernstein on her return from Europe, Branigan was signed by Ahmet Ertegun to Atlantic Records. The strength and range of her voice actually impeded her career for several years while the label went through the process of categorizing her as a pop singer, and her 1981 single Looking Out for Number One, from her unreleased album Silver Dreams, made a brief appearance on the U.S. dance chart, reaching No. 60.

Laura Branigan

Two other early Atlantic singles, Tell Him and Fool's Affair, followed. None of these three singles or the B-side, When, were included on her first album, but all four songs were eventually released on CD over 30 years later in 2014 as bonus cuts on a U.S. CD reissue of Branigan's first album.

Branigan's 9-track debut album, Branigan, was released in March 1982. The first single from the album was All Night with Me, which reached No. 69 on the Billboard charts in early 1982.

The album alternated four energetic up-tempo songs with five ballads, including one of the few songs written solely by Branigan, I Wish We Could Be Alone.

Gloria, an Italian love song recorded in 1979 by Umberto Tozzi and successful in several European countries, was released as the album's second single.

Branigan's version was reworked with Tozzi's own arranger, Greg Mathieson, who updated its production with fellow producer Jack White to give it what Branigan called an American kick to match the new English lyrics. U.S. radio stations were initially unreceptive to Gloria but after it was embraced by dance clubs it eventually won them over, becoming one of the biggest hits of the 1980s. The album went gold, and the single was eventually certified platinum, sales of more than two million U.S. copies.

Branigan's performance of Gloria was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance alongside Linda Ronstadt, Olivia Newton-John, Juice Newton and that year's winner, Melissa Manchester, becoming her only solo nomination.

In the spring of 1983 Branigan released her second album Branigan 2. Branigan's vocals propelled her English-language version of the French song Solitaire toward the top of the U.S. charts. The original Solitaire was written and recorded in 1981 by French singer-songwriter Martine Clemenceau.

More information: Gloria by Laura Branigan

Two songs included on the album began the careers for two then-unknowns: the English translation of Solitaire was the first major hit for songwriter Diane Warren, while the ballad How Am I Supposed to Live Without You was the first major hit for its co-writer, Michael Bolton. Branigan's version reached No. 12 on the hot 100 and spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard adult contemporary chart.

During the height of her career, Branigan also made acting appearances, first in 1981 in An American Girl in Berlin for West German television, and then after the success of Gloria, guest appearances on American television series such as CHiPs (Fox Trap, season 6, episode 16, in which she played Sarah, lead singer of the female rock band Cadillac Foxes), Automan and Knight Rider.

She would later appear in independent films including Mugsy's Girls, aka Delta Pi, 1985, with Academy Awards winner Ruth Gordon, and the Australian film Backstage. She sang on major national television and radio campaigns for products including Dr Pepper, Coca-Cola and Chrysler, which sponsored her 1985–1986 Hold Me tour.

Laura Branigan

The year 1984 was the height of the European synthpop era, and Self Control, the title track of Branigan's third album, released in April 1984 became her biggest hit internationally, topping the charts in over six countries, most notably West Germany, where it spent six weeks at No. 1.

The original version was recorded a few months earlier in 1984 by one of the song's co-writers Raffaele Riefoli under the name Raf held the West German number 2 spot during this time period; outside of Raf's native Italy, Branigan's version enjoyed more success, hitting No. 4 in the U.S. The song was featured on episode No. 8 of the first season of the TV series Miami Vice titled The Great McCarthy, which aired on November 16, 1984.

Other pop, disco, and adult contemporary hits from Branigan's Self Control album include The Lucky One, which won her a Tokyo Music Festival prize, the continental ballad Ti Amo, another Umberto Tozzi hit, and a No. 2 hit in Australia for Branigan, and the dance hit Satisfaction. The album also featured an understated version of Carole King's Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow; as a counterpoint to all the dance productions, it was a bare-bones piano version.

In concerts and television appearances throughout her career, Branigan accompanied herself on the piano for the song.

In 1984 Branigan's live show was recorded twice, for a syndicated radio concert series and a concert video. Branigan was also nominated for an award at the American Music Awards of 1985 for favorite pop/rock female video artist, won by Cyndi Lauper. Also in 1985 Branigan performed the main theme song for the television mini-series Hollywood Wives, based on the novel by Jackie Collins.

More information: Forever Young by Laura Branigan

By the time Branigan's fourth album Hold Me was released in July 1985, Self Control was a worldwide success. The hits continued with Spanish Eddie, which was her sixth U.S. Billboard top 40 pop hit in two and a half years.

The subsequent single release Hold Me was a U.S. top-40 dance hit, and Branigan's introduction of the rock ballad I Found Someone, co-written by Michael Bolton, a later hit for Cher, scored even higher on the adult contemporary chart. However, neither song was supported by a music video, and both stalled at the low end of the Hot 100 chart.

On June 13, 1985, Branigan made her fourth appearance on legendary TV music show American Bandstand, performing Spanish Eddie and Hold Me. On July 4, 1985 she performed in Point State Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Laura Branigan

Branigan's fifth album Touch, released July 7, 1987, marked a change in her career. 

Under new management and using different producers, Branigan took a more active role in her work and in the studio, seeing her return to dance floors with the Stock-Aitken-Waterman-produced track Shattered Glass written by Bob Mitchell and Steve Coe, of the band Monsoon.

Shattered Glass was performed by Branigan on the last episode of American Bandstand, hosted by Dick Clark, to be broadcast on ABC on September 5, 1987, becoming their last guest performer.

The album also included a return to the Billboard top-40 with her cover of Jennifer Rush's Power of Love, which was one of the 20 bestselling singles in the U.S. during the Christmas season.

The album's third single Cry Wolf, a top-30 AC hit, did not capture the attention of pop radio stations and stalled; the ballad was recorded two years later by Stevie Nicks, and more recently by its writer Jude Johnstone.

Branigan's sixth album, Laura Branigan (March 21, 1990), brought her back to the Hi-NRG charts and gay clubs with Moonlight on Water, and she scored a top-30 adult contemporary hit with Never in a Million Years.

Branigan added production to her list of credits with her cover of Vicki Sue Robinson's disco-era Turn the Beat Around and the atmospheric Let Me In, a cover of an Eddie Money song. The album also includes Unison, which was the title track for Céline Dion's English debut CD in the same year.

More information: The Power of Love by Laura Branigan

The album's closing track, a cover of Bryan Adams' The Best Was Yet to Come, was produced and arranged by Branigan.

The 1990–1991 Laura Branigan Tour, which was kicked off with an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson on July 13, 1990 was followed by a performance in the Trump Regency Showroom in Atlantic City, New Jersey on July 14, and filmed for a syndicated U.S. television show SRO in Concert, which was released on videocassette and laserdisc; on July 15, 1990 she performed at the Warwick Musical Theatre in Rhode Island.

On Branigan's seventh and final studio album Over My Heart (August 17, 1993), the singer again produced, with Phil Ramone, and wrote and arranged. It included Didn't We Almost Win It All by Branigan and Brian BecVar, released as the first single, a cover of Cher's song Hard Enough Getting Over You, released as the second single, a cover of the Patty Loveless single How Can I Help You Say Goodbye, a cover of Roxette's song The Sweet Hello, the Sad Goodbye, and Is There Anybody Here But Me?, a smooth mid-tempo number.

Laura Branigan

After 1990 Branigan's chart success cooled in the U.S., though she was still in demand around the world and went on several global tours.

In 1994, not long after the release of Over My Heart, Larry Kruteck, Branigan's husband was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Branigan refused to accept the medical prognosis, and left the music industry to devote her attention to him.

Branigan put Kruteck on herbal treatments, eventually nursing him full-time. Kruteck survived for another two and a half years and died on June 15, 1996, in New York.

In early 2001, Branigan's return to the stage was postponed, when she broke both of her femurs in a 10-foot fall from a ladder while she was hanging wisteria outside her three-bedroom lakeside home in Westchester County, New York, resulting in physical therapy for six months.

In 2002, she performed twice as the singing Janis Joplin in the off-Broadway musical Love, Janis, before dropping out of the show. I left Janis because the producers failed to file with Equity properly, she told the Sunday News in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I was sort of relieved. My voice isn't anything like Janis Joplin's, and there were 19 of her songs in the show.

In later years she continued to record, and dated the drummer in her band Tommy Bayiokos.

More information: Self Control by Laura Branigan

Also in 2002, her second official US hits collection, The Essentials, was released, including the long out-of-print hit I Found Someone.

Laura Branigan died in her sleep at her lodge in East Quogue, New York, on August 26, 2004, at age 52. The cause was attributed to a previously undiagnosed ventricular brain aneurysm. It was reported in the media that she had been experiencing headaches for several weeks before her death, but did not seek medical attention. Her ashes were scattered over Long Island Sound.

The NHL's St. Louis Blues began using Laura Branigan's cover version of Gloria as its unofficial victory song when they went on a franchise-record 11-game winning streak during the 2018–19 season. A few Blues players visited a bar in South Philadelphia called Jacks NYB to watch the NFL Wild Card game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Chicago Bears.

More information: Mobituaries

When you're on stage,

the audience becomes your other half.

It's the ultimate high you can reach

as a musician -an incredible feeling.

And no matter where I am it's still the same;

there's a reason we call music the universal language.

Laura Branigan

JANIS JOPLIN, YOU ARE STILL A 'PIECE OF OUR HEARTS'

Janis Joplin

Today, The Grandma has been at home preparing new English language projects for the closer future. She likes working in new experiences because she believes that a person must learn new things constantly.

Meanwhile she has been searching information and choosing new material, The Grandma has decided to listen to some music.

She loves music and it is a great partner when you are doing whatever you want. The Grandma has chosen Janis Joplin, a great artist that died on a day like today in 1970. She was only 27 years old. Joplin died too young although her legend is still alive.

Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943-October 4, 1970) was an American rock, soul, and blues singer-songwriter, and one of the most successful and widely known rock stars of her era. After releasing three albums, she died of a heroin overdose at the age of 27. A fourth album, Pearl, was released in January 1971, just over three months after her death. It reached number one on the Billboard charts.

In 1967, Joplin rose to fame following an appearance at Monterey Pop Festival, where she was the lead singer of the then little-known San Francisco psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company.

More information: BBC

After releasing two albums with the band, she left Big Brother to continue as a solo artist with her own backing groups, first the Kozmic Blues Band and then the Full Tilt Boogie Band.

She appeared at the Woodstock festival and the Festival Express train tour. Five singles by Joplin reached the Billboard Hot 100, including a cover of the Kris Kristofferson song Me and Bobby McGee, which reached number 1 in March 1971.

Janis Joplin

Her most popular songs include her cover versions of Piece of My Heart, Cry Baby, Down on Me, Ball and Chain, and Summertime; and her original song Mercedes Benz, her final recording.

Joplin, a mezzo-soprano highly respected for her charismatic performing ability, was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. Audiences and critics alike referred to her stage presence as electric. Rolling Stone ranked Joplin number 46 on its 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and number 28 on its 2008 list of 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She remains one of the top-selling musicians in the United States, with Recording Industry Association of America certifications of 15.5 million albums sold.

Janis Lyn Joplin was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on January 19, 1943, to Dorothy Bonita East (1913-1998), a registrar at a business college, and her husband, Seth Ward Joplin (1910-1987), an engineer at Texaco. She had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. The family belonged to the Churches of Christ denomination.

Joplin stated that she was ostracized and bullied in high school. Joplin graduated from high school in 1960 and attended Lamar State College of Technology in Beaumont, Texas, during the summer and later the University of Texas at Austin (UT), though she did not complete her college studies.

More information: DW

In 1963, Joplin was arrested in San Francisco for shoplifting. During the two years that followed, her drug use increased and she acquired a reputation as a speed freak and occasional heroin user. She also used other psychoactive drugs and was a heavy drinker throughout her career; her favorite alcoholic beverage was Southern Comfort.

Back in Port Arthur in the spring of 1965, after Joplin's parents noticed her weight of 40 kg, she changed her lifestyle. She avoided drugs and alcohol, adopted a beehive hairdo, and enrolled as an anthropology major at Lamar University in nearby Beaumont, Texas. During her time at Lamar University, she commuted to Austin to sing solo, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar.

Janis Joplin

In 1966, Joplin's bluesy vocal style attracted the attention of the San Francisco-based psychedelic rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company, which had gained some renown among the nascent hippie community in Haight-Ashbury.

She was recruited to join the group by Chet Helms, a promoter who had known her in Texas and who at the time was managing Big Brother. Helms sent his friend Travis Rivers to find her in Austin, Texas, where she had been performing with her acoustic guitar, and to accompany her to San Francisco.

One of Joplin's earliest major performances in 1967 was at the Mantra-Rock Dance, a musical event held on January 29 at the Avalon Ballroom by the San Francisco Hare Krishna temple. Janis Joplin and Big Brother performed there along with the Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, Allen Ginsberg, Moby Grape, and Grateful Dead, donating proceeds to the Krishna temple.

The band's debut studio album, Big Brother & the Holding Company, was released by Mainstream Records in August 1967, shortly after the group's breakthrough appearance in June at the Monterey Pop Festival. Two tracks, Coo Coo and The Last Time, were released separately as singles, while the tracks from the previous single, Blindman and All Is Loneliness, were added to the remaining eight tracks.

When Columbia Records took over the band's contract and re-released the album, they included Coo Coo and The Last Time, and put featuring Janis Joplin on the cover. The debut album spawned four minor hits with the singles Down on Me, a traditional song arranged by Joplin, Bye Bye Baby, Call On Me and Coo Coo, on all of which Joplin sang lead vocals.

More information: Rolling Stone I & II

On April 7, 1968, the last day of their East Coast tour, Joplin and Big Brother performed with Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, and Elvin Bishop at the Wake for Martin Luther King, Jr. concert in New York.

For her first major studio recording, Joplin played a major role in the arrangement and production of the songs that would comprise Big Brother and the Holding Company's second album, Cheap Thrills. During the recording sessions, produced by John Simon, Joplin was said to be the first person to enter the studio and the last person to leave. Footage of Joplin and the band in the studio shows Joplin in great form and taking charge during the recording for Summertime. The album featured a cover design by counterculture cartoonist Robert Crumb.

Although Cheap Thrills sounded as if it consisted of concert recordings, like on Combination of the Two and I Need a Man to Love, only Ball and Chain was actually recorded in front of a paying audience; the rest of the tracks were studio recordings. The album had a raw quality, including the sound of a drinking glass breaking and the broken shards being swept away during the song Turtle Blues. Cheap Thrills produced very popular hits with Piece of My Heart and Summertime.

Janis Joplin

Joplin appeared at Woodstock starting at approximately 2:00 a.m., on Sunday, August 17, 1969. Joplin informed her band that they would be performing at the concert as if it were just another gig. On Saturday afternoon, when she and the band were flown by helicopter with the pregnant Joan Baez and Baez's mother from a nearby motel to the festival site and Joplin saw the enormous crowd, she instantly became extremely nervous and giddy. Upon landing and getting off the helicopter, Joplin was approached by reporters asking her questions.

In February 1970, Joplin traveled to Brazil, where she stopped her drug and alcohol use. She was accompanied on vacation there by her friend Linda Gravenites, who had designed the singer's stage costumes from 1967 to 1969.

During late August, September, and early October 1970, Joplin and her band rehearsed and recorded a new album in Los Angeles with producer Paul A. Rothchild, best known for his lengthy relationship with the Doors. Although Joplin died before all the tracks were fully completed, there was enough usable material to compile an LP.

The posthumous Pearl (1971) became the biggest-selling album of her career and featured her biggest hit single, a cover of Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster's Me and Bobby McGee.

The last recording Joplin completed was on October 1, 1970 -Mercedes Benz. On Saturday, October 3, Joplin visited Sunset Sound Recorders to listen to the instrumental track for Nick Gravenites's song Buried Alive in the Blues, which the band had recorded one week earlier.

More information: Bethel Woods Center

On Sunday afternoon, October 4, 1970, producer Paul Rothchild became concerned when Joplin failed to show up at Sunset Sound Recorders for a recording session in which she was scheduled to provide the vocal track for the instrumental track of the song Buried Alive in the Blues.

In the evening, Full Tilt Boogie's road manager, John Cooke, drove to the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood where Joplin was staying. He saw Joplin's psychedelically painted Porsche 356 C Cabriolet in the parking lot and upon entering Joplin's room (#105), he found her dead on the floor beside her bed. The official cause of death was a heroin overdose, possibly compounded by alcohol. Cooke believes Joplin had been given heroin that was much more potent than normal, as several of her dealer's other customers also overdosed that week. Her death was ruled as accidental.

Joplin was cremated at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles, California, and her ashes were scattered from a plane into the Pacific Ocean.

Joplin's death in October, 4 1970 at age 27 stunned her fans and shocked the music world, especially when coupled with the death just 16 days earlier of another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix, also at age 27.

More information: The Telegraph

I always wanted to be an artist, whatever that was,

like other chicks want to be stewardesses.

I read. I painted. I thought.

Janis Joplin

THE BEANS & THE HIPPIE MOVEMENT IN SAN FRANCISCO

Paqui Bean ready to enjoy Hippie lifestyle

Today, The Beans have been working some new aspects of the English grammar like Used to and Object Pronouns. 

The family is a little tired because of the rythm of the trips. They are doing exceptional efforts but they are hard workers and exceptional students and they are doing a great job.

More information: Used to 1, 2 and 3

The family has decided to stay in the hotel and talk about the history of the city that they are going to visit deeply during the next days. San Francisco is a city with a huge history, a great referent in all kind of social movements and the city where the Hippie movement born in the 60's like a peaceful movement against war policies.

The Beans have been talking about the importance of this movement not only for the history of the USA but for the universal history because it was a mirror for other countries and communities.

More information: Object Pronouns

If you talk about the Hippie movement, you must remember incredible voices and composers like Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Jimmi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Scott McKenzie, Jefferson Airplane and others. An exceptional generation of great artists who expanded the global message of peace and love around the planet.

Salvador Dalí, a genius of painting

The Grandma has also talked about the influence of the drugs in this movement, particularly, and how drugs have been used by the power to stop social movements and to control them. 

It has been a very hard moment because this is a theme that affects everybody in some senses and everyone of us has a closer experience to tell, to remember and sometimes, to forget.

Finally, the family has been talking about some important artists and writers like Arthur Conan Doyle, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso, Mercè Rodoreda, Agatha Christie, Federico Garcia Lorca, Antonio Machado and Miguel Hernández.

More information: Cambrige 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

A hippie is a member of a counterculture, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The word hippie came from hipster and used to describe beatniks who moved into New York City's Greenwich Village and San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. The term hippie first found popularity in San Francisco by Herb Caen, a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Jimmi Hendrix & Janis Joplin

The origins of the terms hip and hep are uncertain. By the 1940s, both had become part of African American jive slang and meant sophisticated; currently fashionable; fully up-to-date. Hippies created their own communities, listened to psychedelic music, embraced the sexual revolution, and many used drugs such as marijuana, LSD, peyote and psilocybin mushrooms to explore altered states of consciousness.

In 1967, the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, popularized hippie culture, leading to the Summer of Love on the West Coast of the United States, and the 1969 Woodstock Festival on the East Coast. 

Hippies in Mexico, known as jipitecas, formed La Onda and gathered at Avándaro, while in New Zealand, nomadic housetruckers practiced alternative lifestyles and promoted sustainable energy at Nambassa. 

More information: All That Interesting

Hippies enjoying life in the 60's

In the United Kingdom in 1970, many gathered at the gigantic Isle of Wight Festival with a crowd of around 400,000 people. In later years, mobile peace convoys of New Age travelers made summer pilgrimages to free music festivals at Stonehenge and elsewhere.

In Australia, hippies gathered at Nimbin for the 1973 Aquarius Festival and the annual Cannabis Law Reform Rally or MardiGrass. 

Piedra Roja Festival, a major hippie event in Chile, was held in 1970. Hippie and psychedelic culture influenced 1960s and early 1970s young culture in Iron Curtain countries in Eastern Europe.

More information: The Culture Trip

Hippie fashion and values had a major effect on culture, influencing popular music, television, film, literature, and the arts. Since the 1960s, mainstream society has assimilated many aspects of hippie culture. The religious and cultural diversity the hippies espoused has gained widespread acceptance, and Eastern philosophy and spiritual concepts have reached a larger audience.

The hippie movement politicized my generation. 

When it ended, we all started looking back at our own history,  

looking, in my case, for motives of rebellion. 

Vivienne Westwood

THE BEANS IN SAN FRANCISCO: WE ARE THE DREAM

Cupid, Roman God of Love

Today is Saint Valentine. Saint Valentine, officially Saint Valentine of Rome, is a widely recognized 3rd-century Roman saint commemorated on February 14 and since the High Middle Ages is associated with a tradition of courtly love.

All that is reliably known of the saint commemorated on February 14 is his name and that he was martyred and buried at a cemetery on the Via Flaminia close to the Ponte Milvio to the north of Rome on that day. It is uncertain whether St. Valentine is two different Saints. Several different martyrologies have been added to later hagiographies that are unreliable.

The Roman Catholic Church continues to recognize him as a saint, listing him as such in the February 14 entry in the Roman Martyrology, and authorizing liturgical veneration of him on February 14 in any place where that day is not devoted to some other obligatory celebration in accordance with the rule that on such a day the Mass may be that of any saint listed in the Martyrology for that day. 

Saint Valentine is commemorated in the Anglican Communion, as well as in Lutheranism. February 14 The Lutheran Service Book, with its penchant for the old Roman calendar, commemorates Valentine on this date. 

More information: History.com

The Beans have just arrived to the Hotel Palace in San Francisco where they're going to stay during their visit. For the moment, they're going to rest a little and take enough force to continue their visit in this wonderful side of California. 

Old memories of The Grandma with Janis Joplin

The Grandma has decided to visit Vesuvio Café, a long-time city favourite, place that has welcomed authors, musicians, artists and other free spirits through its doors since 1948, artists like Janis Joplin, someone who The Grandma adores. Drawn to the Beat movement, and later to psychedelic rock, Janis Joplin was just another patron who loved to hang out and chill behind its doors. 

More information: San Francisco Travel

Some members of the family are remembering their firsts dates, something very special in a day like today, meanwhile The Grandma is evokating the past again and thinking strongly, that French is the most beautiful language to sing love songs.

Manuel & Cristina Bean

I remember my first date with Cristina. We met in a fantastic restaurant in the downtown and I was waiting for her very nervous. Suddently, Cristina appeared. It was like a dream. She wore a beautiful long white dress -she seemed a bride- and all stopped. Time stopped. World stopped. The waiter stopped. It was an incredible sensation. I was flying. A big scream returned me to the real world. It was a Cristina's scream. Her dress had become red and she was angry. The waiter had fallen over her and the Rioja wine finished on her beautiful dress.

I don't remember a lot about that day. I only remember that Manuel had asked for me a date thousands of times. He was very heavy, very persistent. At the end, I accepted and I wore the most beautiful dress I found inside my wardrove. I was a little nervous but I kept calm when I saw him, just before that waiter fell over me. We had dinner. At the beginning, it was a little uncomfortable to wear that red wine dress but finally, I only had eyes for Manuel. It was like a dream. Since that moment, he is my Cari.

I have a dream / Chanter la vie by ABBA (French Version)

I was visiting another little town in Denmark. Denmark is a wonderful country full of beautiful tales and nice people. I was travelling with some friends and we decided to visit a little church. When we entered in the religious place, an intensive light focused on him. Antonio was there, at the end of the central corridor, with the Holy Bible in his hands, reading Apostle John. I remember his words: 'And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth' (1 John 5:6). It was like a dream. Since that moment, I knew I wanted to stay the rest of my life with that handsome man, although I realized it wasn't going to be easy to share my life with a Protestant preacher. I'm Portuguese. I'm deeply Catholic, but as Apostle John says: 'The Spirit is the Truth'.

It was another day in the church. There's an enourmous crisis of faith in European citizens nowadays and Danish people aren't an exception. There weren't a lot of people in my little chappel but suddenly, the door opened and Ana appeared rounded by a sacred light. She was like an angel, a God's revelation. She was a God's present. I knew it immediately. It was like a dream. Since that moment, I realized I could follow the paths of God in different ways, it wasn't necessary to explain the God's words inside an empty church. I must go out and explain them around the world, but I wasn't going to do it alone: I wanted to share the rest of my life with Ana. She's a God's blessing.

La chanson d'Hélène by Mísia (French Version)

I'm a professional football player and although I'm French, I'm a great fan of Real Madrid, perhaps because one of my favourite players has been Zinedine Zidane. It was the first time I visited the Santiago Bernabeu. I was very lucky because I was going to watch a derby: Real Madrid against Futbol Club Barcelona. I was very excited and happy. The anthem sounded and everybody stood up and started to sing and wave their flags. Everybody? No. In one of the corners of the stadium, near me, a beautiful woman looked the scenery with incredible open eyes. It was like a dream. It seemed that she wasn't very comfortable there and I felt a strange feeling of helping her to stay better. I left my seat and walked between dozens of people to arrive to her. I embraced her. I embraced Eli. Since that moment, we share our lives and two wonderful kids. By the way, my team won 2-1. ¡Hala Madrid!

I was scared. Thousands of thousands of people were shouting and singing to cheer their team. All the stadium was covered by an intensive white colour except me. I was very proud of wearing my blue and maroon t-shirt, which symbolize the colours of my football team. Yes. I'm a Futbol Club Barcelona's supporter and I was watching the Derby in the stadium of the rival thanks to a contest that I had won eating a packet of fried potatoes. I was alone and I have to confess that I didn't feel very well. Suddenly, Edgar appeared from the crowd and embraced me. It was like a dream. Since that moment, we share our lives, our football discussions and I demonstrate everybody that to love someone is not a question of age but heart and feelings. I don't remember the final score. It doesn't matter. Visca el Barça!

La Vie en Rose by Marlene Dietrich (French Version)

We are the dream - Muriel Casals

BRITISH CELEBRITIES (II): AMY WINEHOUSE

Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse was an English songwriter and singer who played different genres: soul, jazz, reggae and rhythm and blues. She became famous quickly and had a chaotic life dying of alcohol poising on 23 July 2011.

Her songs will be eternal and unforgettable and her album Back to Black posthumously became the UK’s best-selling album of the 21^st century.

Amy Winehouse died at age 27 entering in The 27 Club. Jim Morrison (The Doors), Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain (Nirvana) from the US; Brian Jones, the founder and original bandleader of The Rolling Stones from England; Cecilia from Spain or Slada Guduras from Bosnia also belong to this Club.

More information: Amy Winehouse Foundation

And life, is like a pipe
And I'm a tiny penny rolling up the walls, inside

We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times

And I go back to black

Amy Winehouse