MARTINA MCBRIDE, NEO-TRADITIONAL COUNTRY MUSIC

Today, The Grandma has decided to listen to some music, and she has chosen one of her favourite genres, country music, and one of the best singers, Martina McBride, who was born on a day like today in 1966.

Martina Mariea McBride (born July 29, 1966) is an American country music singer-songwriter and record producer known for her soprano singing range and her country pop material.

McBride signed to RCA Records in 1991, and made her debut the following year as a neo-traditionalist country singer with the single, The Time Has Come. Over time, she developed a pop-styled crossover sound, similar to Shania Twain and Faith Hill, and had a string of major hit singles on the Billboard country chart and occasionally on the adult contemporary chart. Five of these singles went to No. 1 on the country chart between 1995 and 2001, and one peaked at No. 1 on the adult contemporary chart in 2003.

McBride has fourteen studio albums, two greatest hits compilations, one live album, as well as two additional compilation albums. Eight of her studio albums and two of her compilations have an RIAA Gold certification, or higher. In the U.S., she has sold over 14 million albums. In addition, McBride has won the Country Music Association's Female Vocalist of the Year award four times, tied with Reba McEntire for the third-most wins, and the Academy of Country Music's Top Female Vocalist award three times. She is also a 14-time Grammy Award nominee.

More information: Martina McBride

McBride was born in Sharon, Kansas, on July 29, 1966. She has two brothers, Martin and Steve, who play in her concert band as of 2017, and a sister, Gina.

McBride's parents, Daryl and Jeanne Schiff, owned a dairy farm. Daryl, who was also a cabinetry shop owner, exposed her to country music at a young age. Listening to country music helped her acquire a love for singing. After school, she sang for hours along to the records of such popular artists as Reba McEntire, Linda Ronstadt, Juice Newton, Jeanne Pruett, Connie Smith, and Patsy Cline.

Around the age of eight or nine, Martina began singing with a band her father fronted, The Schiffters. As she grew older, her role in the band progressively increased, from simply singing, to also playing keyboard with them. She enjoyed performing in her early years.

McBride began performing with a local rock band, The Penetrators, in Wichita instead. Then, in 1987, Schiff gathered a group of musicians called Lotus and started looking for rehearsal space; she began renting space from studio engineer John McBride. In 1988, the two married.

After marrying, the couple moved to Nashville, Tennessee, in 1989 with the hope of beginning a career in country music. John McBride joined Garth Brooks's sound crew and later became his concert production manager. She occasionally joined her husband on the road and helped sell Garth Brooks souvenirs.

In 1990, impressed by her enthusiastic spirit, Brooks offered her the position as his opening act provided she could obtain a recording contract.

During this time, while her husband was working with country artists Charlie Daniels and Ricky Van Shelton, he also helped produce her demo tape, which helped her gain a recording contract with RCA Nashville Records in 1991.

More information: Twitter-Martina McBride

McBride released her debut studio album by RCA Records in 1992, titled The Time Has Come. The Way That I Am was McBride's second album.

Released in 1995, Wild Angels accounted for another top five hit in its lead single Safe in the Arms of Love, which had previously been recorded by both Wild Choir and Baillie & the Boys, and was concurrently released in Canada by Michelle Wright at the time of McBride's version.

Still Holding On, a duet with Clint Black which was the lead-off single to her album Evolution and his album Nothin' but the Taillights, and Valentine, a collaboration with pop pianist Jim Brickman which appeared on his album Picture This.

McBride's sixth studio album, Emotion, was released in 1999.

In 2003, McBride released her seventh studio album, Martina, which celebrated womanhood.

In 2004, McBride won the CMA's Female Vocalist award for the fourth time, following the wins in 2003, 2002 and 1999, which tied her for the most wins in that category with Reba McEntire.

After finding success in country pop-styled music, McBride released her next studio album, Timeless, in 2005, which consisted of country covers.

In 2007, McBride released her ninth studio album, Waking Up Laughing. McBride wrapped up production of her tenth studio album in late 2008.

McBride exited RCA in November 2010 and signed with Republic Nashville. She began working on a new studio album with producer Byron Gallimore.

In July 2017, McBride revealed she is planning on releasing a Christmas album, of which she said It won't have as many hymns on it. It will be more things like 'Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town' and 'It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas'.

More information: Southern Living

 I just love where I am right now in my career.
I love country music. I don't ever feel restricted by the genre.
I've been able to have a solid career that 

we've built one step at a time and a family
 I know that I'm in a good place.

Martina McBride

JIMI HENDRIX: THE GREATEST ROCK INSTRUMENTALIST

Jimi Hendrix

James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (November 27, 1942-September 18, 1970) was an American rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most influential electric guitarists in the history of popular music, and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. 

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music.

More information: The Official Jimi Hendrix Page

Born in Seattle, Washington, Hendrix began playing guitar at the age of 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and trained as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division; he was granted an honorable discharge the following year. 

Soon afterward, he moved to Clarksville, Tennessee, and began playing gigs on the Chitlin' Circuit, earning a place in the Isley Brothers' backing band and later with Little Richard, with whom he continued to work through mid-1965. He then played with Curtis Knight and the Squires before moving to England in late 1966 after being discovered by Linda Keith, who in turn interested bassist Chas Chandler of the Animals in becoming his first manager. 

Jimi Hendrix

Within months, Hendrix had earned three UK top ten hits with the Jimi Hendrix Experience: Hey Joe, Purple Haze, and The Wind Cries Mary. 

He achieved fame in the U.S. after his performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and in 1968 his third and final studio album, Electric Ladyland, reached number one in the U.S.; it was Hendrix's most commercially successful release and his first and only number one album. 

The world's highest-paid performer, he headlined the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 before his accidental death from barbiturate-related asphyxia on September 18, 1970, at the age of 27.

More information: BBC

Hendrix expanded the range and vocabulary of the electric guitar into areas no musician had ever ventured before. 

Music doesn't lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.

Jimi Hendrix

ELVIS AARON PRESLEY: THE KING OF THE ROCK'N'ROLL

Elvis Aaron Presley aka The King

Forty years without the King of the Rock'n'Roll is too much time. The Grandma remembers, clearly, the importance of Elvis Presley in the recent history of the United States and his influence in the world music. To homage The King and to remember the excellent moments together, The Grandma wants to talk about him, one of the most important legends of the last century:

Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935–August 16, 1977) was an American singer and actor. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is often referred to as the King of Rock and Roll or simply the King.

More information: Elvis

Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, and relocated to Memphis, Tennessee with his family when he was 13 years old. His music career began there in 1954, when he recorded a song with producer Sam Phillips at Sun Records. Accompanied by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, Presley was an early popularizer of rockabilly, an uptempo, backbeat-driven fusion of country music and rhythm and blues. 

Elvis Presley's Jailrock House

RCA Victor acquired his contract in a deal arranged by Colonel Tom Parker, who managed the singer for more than two decades. Presley's first RCA single, Heartbreak Hotel, was released in January 1956 and became a number-one hit in the United States. 

He was regarded as the leading figure of rock and roll after a series of successful network television appearances and chart-topping records. His energized interpretations of songs and sexually provocative performance style, combined with a singularly potent mix of influences across color lines that coincided with the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement, made him enormously popular and controversial.

More information: Elvis Presley Photos

In November 1956, Presley made his film debut in Love Me Tender. In 1958, he was drafted into military service. He resumed his recording career two years later, producing some of his most commercially successful work before devoting much of the 1960s to making Hollywood films and their accompanying soundtrack albums, most of which were critically derided. 

Elvis Presley's Suspicious Minds

In 1968, following a seven-year break from live performances, he returned to the stage in the acclaimed televised comeback special Elvis, which led to an extended Las Vegas concert residency and a string of highly profitable tours. 

In 1973, Presley featured in the first globally broadcast concert via satellite, Aloha from Hawaii. 

On August 16, 1977, he suffered a heart attack in his Graceland estate, and died as a result. His death came in the wake of many years of prescription drug abuse.

More information: Elvis, The Music

He won three Grammys, also receiving the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at age 36, and has been inducted into multiple music halls of fame. 

The Grandma and Elvis in his Tupelo's birthplace

Presley was scheduled to fly out of Memphis on the evening of August 16, 1977, to begin another tour. That afternoon, he was discovered unresponsive on his bathroom floor. Attempts to revive him failed, and death was officially pronounced at 3:30 p.m. at Baptist Memorial Hospital.

Presley's rise to national attention in 1956 transformed the field of popular music and had a huge effect on the broader scope of popular culture. As the catalyst for the cultural revolution that was rock and roll, he was central not only to defining it as a musical genre but in making it a touchstone of youth culture and rebellious attitude. With its racially mixed origins, repeatedly affirmed by Presley, rock and roll's occupation of a central position in mainstream American culture facilitated a new acceptance and appreciation of black culture.

More information: Graceland

In this regard, Little Richard said of Presley, He was an integrator. Elvis was a blessing. They wouldn't let black music through. He opened the door for black music. Al Green agreed: He broke the ice for all of us. President Jimmy Carter remarked on his legacy in 1977: His music and his personality, fusing the styles of white country and black rhythm and blues, permanently changed the face of American popular culture. His following was immense, and he was a symbol to people the world over of the vitality, rebelliousness, and good humor of his country. 

Truth is like the sun. 

You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. 

Elvis Presley

CHEROKEES: GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK

Joseph de Ca'th Lon in Great Smoky Mountains

Joseph de Ca'th Lon is visiting Great Smoky Mountains National Park to celebrate the 83th Anniversary of its declaration as a National Park.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a United States National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site that straddles the ridgeline of the Great Smoky Mountains, part of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are a division of the larger Appalachian Mountain chain. The border between Tennessee and North Carolina runs northeast to southwest through the centerline of the park. It is the most visited national park in the United States with over 11.3 million recreational visitors in 2016. On its route from Maine to Georgia, the Appalachian Trail also passes through the center of the park. 

More information: Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Former Governor Ben W. Hooper of Tennessee was the principal land purchasing agent for the park, which was officially established on 15 June 1934. The park was chartered by the United States Congress the same year and officially dedicated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940.

Bears in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The park encompasses 2,114.15 km2, making it one of the largest protected areas in the eastern United States. The main park entrances are located along U.S. Highway 441 at the towns of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Cherokee, North Carolina. 
It was the first national park whose land and other costs were paid for in part with federal funds; previous parks were funded wholly with state money or private funds. Due to the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains wildfires, the Park was under evacuation orders, along with some towns and cities located nearby.

Before the arrival of European settlers, the region was part of the homeland of the Cherokees. Frontiers people began settling the land in the 18th and early 19th century. In 1830 President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, beginning the process that eventually resulted in the forced removal of all Indian tribes east of the Mississippi River to what is now Oklahoma. Many of the Cherokee left, but some, led by renegade warrior Tsali, hid out in the area that is now the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Some of their descendants now live in the Qualla Boundary to the south of the park.

More information: Cherokee Nation

This park was designated an International Biosphere Reserve in 1976, was certified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983, and became a part of the Southern Appalachian Biosphere Reserve in 1988.

Joseph in the National Park Visitors Center

The majority of rocks in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park are Late Precambrian rocks that are part of the Ocoee Supergroup. This group consists of metamorphosed sandstones, phyllites, schists, and slate. 

Early Precambrian rocks are not only the oldest rocks in the park but also the dominant rock type in sites such as the Raven Fork Valley and upper Tuckasegee River between Cherokee and Bryson City. 

They primarily consist of metamorphic gneiss, granite, and schist. Cambrian sedimentary rocks can be found among the bottom of the Foothills to the northwest and in limestone coves such as Cades Cove. One of the most visited attractions in the mountains is Cades Cove which is a window or an area where older rocks made out of sandstone surround the valley floor of younger rocks made out of limestone.

More information: Hiking the Smokys - Appalachian Trail

The oldest rocks in the Smokies are the Precambrian gneiss and schists which were formed over a billion years ago from the accumulation of marine sediments and igneous rock. In the Late Precambrian, the primordial ocean expanded and the more recent Ocoee Supergroup rocks formed from the accumulation of eroding land mass onto the continental shelf. In the Paleozoic Era, the ocean deposited a thick layer of marine sediments which left behind sedimentary rock. During the Ordovician Period, the collision of the North American and African tectonic plates initiated the Alleghenian orogeny that created the Appalachian range. During the Mesozoic Era rapid erosion of softer sedimentary rocks re-exposed the older Ocoee Supergroup formations.

Download Geologic Map of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

I'm proud of being part Cherokee, 

and I think it's time all us Indians felt the same way. 

Loretta Lynn