title: Dark skin

text: Sweating dissipated heat through evaporation. Early humans, like chimpanzees now, had few sweat glands, and most of them were located in the palms of the hand and the soles of the feet. At times, individuals with more sweat glands were born. These humans could search for food and hunt for longer periods before being forced back to the shades. The more they could forage, the more and healthier offspring they could produce, and the higher the chance they had to pass on their genes for abundant sweat glands. With less hair, sweat could evaporate more easily and cool the bodies of humans faster. A few million years of evolution later, early humans had sparse body hair and more than 2 million sweat glands in their body.


title: Dark skin

text: Hairless skin, however, is particularly vulnerable to be damaged by ultraviolet light and this proved to be a problem for humans living in areas of intense UV radiation, and the evolutionary result was the development of dark-coloured skin as a protection. Scientists have long assumed that humans evolved melanin in order to absorb or scatter harmful sun radiation. Some researchers assumed that melanin protects against skin cancer. While high UV radiation can cause skin cancer, the development of cancer usually occurs after child-bearing age. As natural selection favours individuals with traits of reproductive success, skin cancer had little effect on the evolution of dark skin. Previous hypotheses suggested that sunburned nipples impeded breastfeeding, but a slight tan is enough to protect mothers against this issue.


title: Dark skin

text: A 1978 study examined the effect of sunlight on folate—a vitamin B complex—levels. The study found that even short periods of intense sunlight are able to halve folate levels if someone has light skin. Low folate levels are correlated with neural tube defects, such as anencephaly and spina bifida. UV rays can strip away folate, which is important to the development of healthy foetuses. In these abnormalities children are born with an incomplete brain or spinal cord. Nina Jablonski, a professor of anthropology and expert on evolution of human skin coloration, found several cases in which mothers' visits to tanning studios were connected to neural tube defects in early pregnancy. She also found that folate was crucial to sperm development; some male contraception drugs are based on folate inhibition. It has been found that folate may have been the driving force behind the evolution of dark skin.


title: Dark skin

text: As humans dispersed from equatorial Africa to low UVR areas and higher latitudes sometime between 120,000 and 65,000 years ago, dark skin posed a disadvantage. Populations with light skin pigmentation evolved in climates of little sunlight. Light skin pigmentation protects against vitamin D deficiency. It is known that dark-skinned people who have moved to climates of limited sunlight can develop vitamin D-related conditions such as rickets, and different forms of cancer.


title: Dark skin

text: A 2022 study revealed that traits such as dark skin show strong signals for Convergent evolution and selective pressure (positive Selection).


title: Dark skin

text: The main other hypotheses that have been put forward through history to explain the evolution of dark skin coloration relate to increased mortality due to skin cancers, enhanced fitness as a result of protection against sunburns, and increasing benefits due to antibacterial properties of eumelanin.


title: Dark skin

text: Darkly pigmented, eumelanin-rich skin protects against DNA damage caused by the sunlight. This is associated with lower skin cancer rates among dark-skinned populations. The presence of pheomelanin in light skin increases the oxidative stress in melanocytes, and this combined with the limited ability of pheomelanin to absorb UVR contributes to higher skin cancer rates among light-skinned individuals. The damaging effect of UVR on DNA structure and the entailing elevated skin cancer risk is widely recognized. However, these cancer types usually affect people at the end or after their reproductive career and could have not been the evolutionary reason behind the development of dark skin pigmentation. Of all the major skin cancer types, only malignant melanoma have a major effect in a person's reproductive age. The mortality rates of melanoma have been very low (less than 5 per 100,000) before the mid-20th century. It has been argued that the low melanoma mortality rates during reproductive age cannot be the principal reason behind the development of dark skin pigmentation.


title: Dark skin

text: Studies have found that even serious sunburns could not affect sweat gland function and thermoregulation. There are no data or studies that support that sunburn can cause damage so seriously it can affect reproductive success.


title: Dark skin

text: Another group of hypotheses contended that dark skin pigmentation developed as antibacterial protection against tropical infectious diseases and parasites. Although it is true that eumelanin has antibacterial properties, its importance is secondary to 'physical adsorption' (physisorption) to protect against UVR-induced damage. This hypothesis is not consistent with the evidence that most of the hominid evolution took place in savanna environments and not in tropical rainforests. Humans living in hot and sunny environments have darker skin than humans who live in wet and cloudy environments. The antimicrobial hypothesis also does not explain why some populations (like the Inuit or Tibetans) who live far from the tropics and are exposed to high UVR have darker skin pigmentation than their surrounding populations.


title: Dark skin

text: Dark-skinned humans have high amounts of melanin found in their skin. Melanin is derivative of the amino acid tyrosine. Eumelanin is the dominant form of melanin found in human skin. Eumelanin protects tissues and DNA from the radiation damage of UV light. Melanin is produced in specialized cells called melanocytes, which are found at the lowest level of the epidermis. Melanin is produced inside small membrane-bound packages called melanosomes. People with naturally-occurring dark skin have melanosomes which are clumped, large and full of eumelanin. A four-fold difference in naturally-occurring dark skin gives seven- to eight-fold protection against DNA damage, but even the darkest skin colour cannot protect against all damage to DNA.


title: Dark skin

text: Dark skin offers great protection against UVR because of its eumelanin content, the UVR-absorbing capabilities of large melanosomes, and because eumelanin can be mobilized faster and brought to the surface of the skin from the depths of the epidermis. For the same body region, light- and dark-skinned individuals have similar numbers of melanocytes (there is considerable variation between different body regions), but pigment-containing organelles, called melanosomes, are larger and more numerous in dark-skinned individuals. Keratocytes from dark skin cocultured with melanocytes give rise to a melanosome distribution pattern characteristic of dark skin. Melanosomes are not in aggregated state in darkly pigmented skin compared to lightly pigmented skin. Due to the heavily melanised melanosomes in darkly-pigmented skin, it can absorb more energy from UVR and thus offers better protection against sunburns and by absorption and dispersion UV rays.


title: Dark skin

text: Darkly-pigmented skin protects against direct and indirect DNA damage. Photodegration occurs when melanin absorbs photons. Recent research suggest that the photoprotective effect of dark skin is increased by the fact that melanin can capture free radicals, such as hydrogen peroxide, which are created by the interaction of UVR and layers of the skin. Heavily pigmented melanocytes have greater capacity to divide after ultraviolet irradiation, which suggests that they receive less damage to their DNA. Despite this, medium-wave ultraviolet radiation (UVB) damages the immune system even in darker skinned individuals due to its effect on Langerhans cells. The stratum corneum of people with dark or heavily tanned skin is more condensed and contains more cornified cell layers than in lightly-pigmented humans. These qualities of dark skin enhance the barrier protection function of the skin.


title: Dark skin

text: Although darkly-pigmented skin absorbs about 30 to 40% more sunlight than lightly-pigmented skin, dark skin does not increase the body's internal heat intake in conditions of intense solar radiation. Solar radiation heats up the body's surface and not the interior. Furthermore, this amount of heat is negligible compared to the heat produced when muscles are actively used during exercise. Regardless of skin colour, humans have excellent capabilities to dissipate heat through sweating. Half of the solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface is in the form of infrared light and is absorbed similarly regardless of skin coloration.


title: Dark skin

text: In people with naturally occurring dark skin, the tanning occurs with the dramatic mobilization of melanin upward in the epidermis and continues with the increased production of melanin. This accounts for the fact that dark-skinned people get visibly darker after one or two weeks of sun exposure, and then lose their colour after months when they stay out of the sun. Darkly-pigmented people tend to exhibit fewer signs of aging in their skin than the lightly-pigmented because their dark skin protects them from most photoaging.


title: Dark skin

text: Skin colour is a polygenic trait, which means that several different genes are involved in determining a specific phenotype. Many genes work together in complex, additive, and non-additive combinations to determine the skin colour of an individual. The skin colour variations are normally distributed from light to dark, as it is usual for polygenic traits.


title: Dark skin

text: Data collected from studies on "MC1R" gene has shown that there is a lack of diversity in dark-skinned African samples in the allele of the gene compared to non-African populations. This is remarkable given that the number of polymorphisms for almost all genes in the human gene pool is greater in African samples than in any other geographic region. So, while the "MC1R"f gene does not significantly contribute to variation in skin colour around the world, the allele found in high levels in African populations probably protects against UV radiation and was probably important in the evolution of dark skin.


title: Dark skin

text: Skin colour seems to vary mostly due to variations in a number of genes of large effect as well as several other genes of small effect ("TYR", "TYRP1", "OCA2", "SLC45A2", "SLC24A5", "MC1R", "KITLG" and "SLC24A4"). This does not take into account the effects of epistasis, which would probably increase the number of related genes. Variations in the "SLC24A5" gene account for 20–25% of the variation between dark- and light-skinned populations of Africa, and appear to have arisen as recently as within the last 10,000 years. The Ala111Thr or rs1426654 polymorphism in the coding region of the SLC24A5 gene reaches fixation in Europe, and is also common among populations in North Africa, the Horn of Africa, West Asia, Central Asia and South Asia.


title: Dark skin

text: Skin pigmentation is an evolutionary adaptation to various UVR levels around the world. As a consequence there are many health implications that are the product of population movements of humans of certain skin pigmentation to new environments with different levels of UVR. Modern humans are often ignorant of their evolutionary history at their peril. Cultural practices that increase problems of conditions among dark-skinned populations are traditional clothing and vitamin D-poor diet.


title: Dark skin

text: Dark-pigmented people living in high sunlight environments are at an advantage due to the high amounts of melanin produced in their skin. The dark pigmentation protects from DNA damage and absorbs the right amounts of UV radiation needed by the body, as well as protects against folate depletion. Folate is a water-soluble vitamin B complex which naturally occurs in green, leafy vegetables, whole grains, and citrus fruits. Women need folate to maintain healthy eggs, for proper implantation of eggs, and for the normal development of placenta after fertilization. Folate is needed for normal sperm production in men. Furthermore, folate is essential for fetal growth, organ development, and neural tube development. Folate breaks down in high intensity UVR. Dark-skinned women suffer the lowest level of neural tube defects. Folate plays an important role in DNA production and gene expression. It is essential for maintaining proper levels of amino acids which make up proteins. Folate is used in the formation of myelin, the sheath that covers nerve cells and makes it possible to send electrical signals quickly. Folate also plays an important role in the development of many neurotransmitters, e.g. serotonin which regulates appetite, sleep, and mood. Serum folate is broken down by UV radiation or alcohol consumption. Because the skin is protected by the melanin, dark-pigmented people have a lower chance of developing skin cancer and conditions related to folate deficiency, such as neural tube defects.


title: Dark skin

text: Dark-skinned people living in low sunlight environments have been recorded to be very susceptible to vitamin D deficiency due to reduced vitamin D synthesis. A dark-skinned person requires about six times as much UVB than lightly-pigmented persons. This is not a problem near the equator; however, it can be a problem at higher latitudes. For humans with dark skin in climates of low UVR, it can take about two hours to produce the same amount of vitamin D as humans with light skin produce in 15 minutes. Dark-skinned people having a high body-mass index and not taking vitamin D supplements were associated with vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D plays an important role in regulating the human immune system and chronic deficiencies in vitamin D can make humans susceptible to specific types of cancers and many kinds of infectious diseases. Vitamin D deficiency increases the risk of developing tuberculosis five-fold and also contributes to the development of breast, prostate, and colorectal cancer.


title: Dark skin

text: The most prevalent disease to follow vitamin D deficiency is rickets, the softening of bones in children potentially leading to fractures and deformity. Rickets is caused by reduced vitamin D synthesis that causes an absence of vitamin D, which then causes the dietary calcium to not be properly absorbed. This disease in the past was commonly found among dark-skinned Americans of the southern part of the United States who migrated north into low sunlight environments. The popularity of sugary drinks and decreased time spent outside have contributed to significant rise of developing rickets. Deformities of the female pelvis related to severe rickets impair normal childbirth, which leads to higher mortality of the infant, mother, or both.


title: Dark skin

text: Vitamin D deficiency is most common in regions with low sunlight, especially in the winter. Chronic deficiencies in vitamin D may also be linked with breast, prostate, colon, ovarian, and possibly other types of cancers. The relationship between cardiovascular disease and vitamin D deficiency also suggest a link between health of cardiac and smooth muscle. Low vitamin D levels have also been linked to impaired immune system and brain functions. In addition, recent studies have linked vitamin D deficiency to autoimmune diseases, hypertension, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and incidence of memory loss.


title: Dark skin

text: Outside the tropics UVR has to penetrate through a thicker layer of atmosphere, which results in most of the intermediate wavelength UVB reflected or destroyed en route; because of this there is less potential for vitamin D biosynthesis in regions far from the equator. Higher amount of vitamin D intake for dark-skinned people living in regions with low levels of sunlight are advised by doctors to follow a vitamin D-rich diet or take vitamin D supplements, although there is recent evidence that dark-skinned individuals are able to process vitamin D more efficiently than lighter-skinned individuals so may have a lower threshold of sufficiency.


title: Dark skin

text: There is a correlation between the geographic distribution of UV radiation (UVR) and the distribution of skin pigmentation around the world. Areas that have higher amounts of UVR have darker-skinned populations, generally located nearer the equator. Areas that are further away from the equator and generally closer to the poles have a lower concentration of UVR and contain lighter-skinned populations. This is the result of human evolution which contributed to variable melanin content in the skin to adapt to certain environments. A larger percentage of dark-skinned people are found in the Southern Hemisphere because latitudinal land mass distribution is disproportionate. The present distribution of skin colour variation does not completely reflect the correlation of intense UVR and dark skin pigmentation due to mass migration and movement of peoples across continents in the recent past. Dark-skinned populations inhabiting Africa, Australia, Melanesia, Papua New Guinea and South Asia all live in some of the areas with the highest UV radiation in the world, and have evolved very dark skin pigmentations as protection from the sun's harmful rays. Evolution has restricted humans with darker skin in tropical latitudes, especially in non-forested regions, where ultraviolet radiation from the sun is usually the most intense. Different dark-skinned populations are not necessarily closely related genetically. Before the modern mass migration, it has been argued that the majority of dark-pigmented people lived within 20° of the equator.


title: Dark skin

text: Natives of Buka and Bougainville at the northern Solomon Islands in Melanesia and the Chopi people of Mozambique in the southeast coast of Africa have darker skin than other surrounding populations. (The native people of Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, have some of the darkest skin pigmentation in the world.) Although these people are widely separated they share similar physical environments. In both regions, they experience very high UVR exposure from cloudless skies near the equator which is reflected from water or sand. Water reflects, depending on colour, about 10 to 30% of UVR that falls on it. People in these populations spend long hours fishing on the sea. Because it is impractical to wear extensive clothing in a watery environment, culture and technology does little to buffer UVR exposure. The skin takes a very large amount of ultraviolet radiation. These populations are probably near or at the maximum darkness that human skin can achieve.


title: Dark skin

text: More recent research has found that human populations over the past 50,000 years have changed from dark-skinned to light-skinned and vice versa. Only 100–200 generations ago, the ancestors of most people living today likely also resided in a different place and had a different skin color. According to Nina Jablonski, darkly-pigmented modern populations in South India and Sri Lanka are an example of this, having re-darkened after their ancestors migrated down from areas much farther north. Scientists originally believed that such shifts in pigmentation occurred relatively slowly. However, researchers have since observed that changes in skin coloration can happen in as little as 100 generations (~2,500 years), with no intermarriage required. The speed of change is also affected by clothing, which tends to slow it down.


title: Dark skin

text: The Aborigines of Australia, as with all humans, are descendants of the Out-of-Africa wave, and their ancestors may have been among the first major groups to leave Africa around 50,000 years ago. Despite early migrations, genetic evidence has pointed out that the indigenous peoples of Australia are genetically very dissimilar to the dark-skinned populations of Africa and that they are more closely related to Eurasian populations.


title: Dark skin

text: The term black initially has been applied as a reference to the skin pigmentation of the aborigines of Australia; today it has been embraced by aboriginal activists as a term for shared culture and identity, regardless of skin colour.


title: Dark skin

text: Melanesia, a subregion of Oceania, whose name means "black islands", have several islands that are inhabited by people with dark skin pigmentation. The islands of Melanesia are located immediately north and northeast of Australia as well as east coast of Papua New Guinea. The western end of Melanesia from New Guinea through the Solomon Islands were first colonized by humans about 40,000 to 29,000 years ago.


title: Dark skin

text: In the world, blond hair is exceptionally rare outside Europe and West Asia, especially among dark-skinned populations. However, Melanesians are one of the dark-skinned human populations known to have naturally-occurring blond hair.


title: Dark skin

text: The indigenous Papuan people of New Guinea have dark skin pigmentation and have inhabited the island for at least 40,000 years. Due to their similar phenotype and the location of New Guinea being in the migration route taken by Indigenous Australians, it was generally believed that Papuans and Aboriginal Australians shared a common origin. However, a 1999 study failed to find clear indications of a single shared genetic origin between the two populations, suggesting multiple waves of migration into Sahul with distinct ancestries.


title: Dark skin

text: Sub-Saharan Africa is the region in Africa situated south of the Sahara where a large number of dark-skinned populations live. Dark-skinned groups on the continent have the same receptor protein as "Homo ergaster" and "Homo erectus" had. According to scientific studies, populations in Africa also have the highest skin color diversity. High levels of skin color variation exists between different populations in Sub-Saharan Africa. These differences depend in part on general distance from the equator, illustrating the complex interactions of evolutionary forces which have contributed to the geographic distribution of skin color at any point of time.


title: Dark skin

text: Due to frequently differing ancestry among dark-skinned populations, the presence of dark skin in general is not a reliable genetic marker, including among groups in Africa. For example, Wilson et al. (2001) found that most of their Ethiopian samples showed closer genetic affinities with lighter-skinned Armenians than with darker-skinned Bantu populations. Mohamoud (2006) likewise observed that their Somali samples were genetically more similar to Arab populations than to other African populations.


title: Dark skin

text: South Asia has some of the greatest skin color diversity outside of Africa. Skin color among South Indians is on average darker than North Indians. This is mainly because of the weather conditions in South Asia—higher UV indices are in the south. Several genetic surveys of South Asian populations in different regions have found a weak negative correlation between social status and skin darkness, represented by the melanin index. A study of caste populations in the Gangetic Plain found an association between the proportion of dark skin and ranking in the caste hierarchy. Dalits had, on average, the darkest skin. A pan-India study of Telugu and North Indian castes found a similar correlation between skin color and caste association, linked to the absence of the rs1426654-A variant of the SLC245-A gene, but are also linked to mutations overriding these variants.


title: Dark skin

text: Relatively dark skin remains among the Inuit and other Arctic populations. A combination of protein-heavy diets and summer snow reflection have been speculated as favouring the retention of pigmented skin.


title: Dark skin

text: Earliest European colonial descriptions of North American populations include terms such as "brown", "tawny" or "olive", though some populations were also described as "light-skinned". Most North American indigenous populations rank similar to African and Oceanian populations in regards to the presence of the allele "Ala111".


title: Dark skin

text: Native South Americans and Mesoamericans are also typically considered dark-skinned. High ultraviolet radiation levels occur throughout the Andes region of Peru, Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.


title: Dark skin

text: The preference or disfavour for darker skin has varied depending on geographical area and time. Today, darker skin is viewed as fashionable and as a sign of well-being in some societies. This resulted in the development of tanning industry in several countries. However, in some countries, dark skin is not seen as highly desirable or indicative of higher class, especially among women.


title: Baseball metaphors for sex

text: In American slang, baseball metaphors for sex are often used as euphemisms for the degree of physical intimacy achieved in sexual encounters or relationships. In the metaphor, first prevalent in the aftermath of World War II, sexual activities are described as if they are actions in a game of baseball. Baseball has also served as the context for metaphors about sexual roles and identity.


title: Baseball metaphors for sex

text: Among the most commonly used metaphors is the progress of a batter and base-runner in describing levels of physical intimacy (traditionally from a heterosexual perspective). Definitions vary, but the following are typical usages of the terms:


title: Baseball metaphors for sex

text: The metaphors are found variously in popular American culture, with one well-known example in the Meat Loaf song "Paradise by the Dashboard Light", which describes a young couple "making out", with a voice-over commentary of a portion of a baseball game, as a metaphor for the couple's activities. A similar example can be found in Billy Joel's song "Zanzibar" in which he compares himself to Pete Rose and sings the lines, "Me, I'm trying just to get to second base and I'd steal it if she only gave the sign. She's gonna give the go ahead, the inning isn't over yet for me." Trace Adkins's 2006 song "Swing" is based on the same concept.


title: Baseball metaphors for sex

text: The sequence of "running the bases" is often regarded as a script, or pattern, for young people who are experimenting with sexual relationships. The script may have slightly changed since the 1960s. Kohl and Francoeur state that with the growing emphasis in the 1990s on safe sex to expand sex beyond heterosexual penetrative intercourse, the "home run" has taken on the additional dimension of oral sex. Richters and Rissel conversely state that "third base" is now sometimes considered to comprise oral sex as part of the accepted pattern of activities, as a precursor to "full" (i.e. penetrative) sex. The use of baseball as a sexual script in general, regardless of what each base signifies, has been critiqued by sexuality educators for misrepresenting sex as a contest with a winner and loser. Deborah Roffman writes that the baseball metaphor has been an "insidiously powerful, singularly effective, and very efficient…as a vehicle for transmitting and transferring to successive generations of young people all that is wrong and unhealthy about American sexual attitudes."


title: Baseball metaphors for sex

text: There are conflicting perspectives on the use of the baseball metaphor as a part of sex education. Some educators have found the baseball metaphor an effective instructional tool when providing sex education to middle school students. Supporters of baseball metaphors in sex education include Leman and Bell. In their book "A Chicken's Guide to Talking Turkey With Your Kids About Sex", they use a baseball metaphor to aid parents in the discussion of puberty with their children, dividing the topics into "first base" ("Changes from the neck up"), "second base" ("Changes from the neck to the waist"), "third base" ("Changes from the waist down"), and "home plate" ("The Big 'It'"). Others argue that the baseball metaphor reflects U.S. ideas about sex as a contest to be won, rather than a mutual and consensual activity. These critiques suggest that other metaphors might be more useful for explaining sexual consent and pleasure. Alternative metaphors and a critique of the baseball metaphor are offered in the sex education materials provided by Scarleteen.


title: Vijaya Nirmala

text: Vijaya Nirmala (born Nidudavolu Nirmala; 20 February 1946 – 27 June 2019) was an Indian actress, director, and producer known for her works predominantly in Telugu cinema along with a few Malayalam and Tamil films. In a career spanning over six decades, she acted in more than 200 films and directed 44 films. In 2002, she entered the "Guinness Book of World Records" as the female director who has directed the most number of films in the world. In 2008, she received the Raghupathi Venkaiah Award for lifetime achievement in Telugu cinema.


title: Vijaya Nirmala

text: Born as Nirmala, she ventured into acting as a child artist with films like "Macha Rekai" (1950) and "Panduranga Mahatyam" (1957). She debuted as a lead actress in the 1964 Malayalam film "Bhargavi Nilayam" which became one of the biggest hits of that year. She then acted in the Tamil film "Enga Veettu Penn" (1965) produced by Vijaya Productions. She added Vijaya to her name as a mark of gratitude to the production house that gave her a break as an artiste. She debuted as a leading lady in Telugu with "Rangula Ratnam" (1966).


title: Vijaya Nirmala

text: She made her directorial debut in Telugu with "Meena" (1973) and went on to direct over 44 films. She acted with her husband Krishna in over 40 films from "Sakshi" (1967) to "Sri Sri" (2016) and the duo was considered as a hit pair. She launched her own production house – Vijaya Krishna Movies and went onto produce 15 films on the banner. She also handled the operations of Padmalaya Studios and Padmalaya Tele Films. Her son Naresh is also a noted actor in Telugu cinema.


title: Vijaya Nirmala

text: She was born as Nidudavolu Nirmala on 20 February 1946 into a Telugu family settled in Tamil Nadu who were originally from Narasaraopet. Her father was a film producer. Her paternal uncle is scholar and literary historian, Nidudavolu Venkatarao. Actress Jayasudha is Venkatrao's granddaughter while singer Raavu Balasaraswathi is her paternal aunt's daughter.


title: Vijaya Nirmala

text: Vijaya Nirmala was married to Krishna Murthy and had a son Naresh, who is also an actor. She later married actor Krishna.


title: Vijaya Nirmala

text: Vijaya Nirmala entered cinema as a child artist with the Tamil movie "Macha Rekai" (1950). At age eleven, she debuted in Telugu films with "Panduranga Mahatmyam" (1957). In 1964, she starred opposite Prem Nazir and rose to stardom with the Malayalam film "Bhargavi Nilayam". Also, in 1967, she starred again opposite Prem Nazir in "Udhyogastha", by P. Venu. She debuted in the Telugu industry in the film "Rangula Ratnam" (1966).


title: Vijaya Nirmala

text: Her first film in Tamil was "Enga Veettu Penn" (1965), which was followed by "Panama Pasama" (1968), "Uyira Maanama" (1968), "En Annan" (1970), and "Gnana Oli" (1972). She met her second husband Krishna on the sets of "Sakshi" (1967), her second film in Telugu, and they starred together in 47 films. It was "Sakshi" that kindled her interest in direction. She has acted in over 200 films with 25 each in Malayalam and Tamil, and the remaining in Telugu.


title: Vijaya Nirmala

text: Her small screen debut came with Balaji Telefilms' "Pelli Kanuka". Soon after, she launched her own banner Vijaya Krishna Movies and produced 15 films. She added Vijaya to her name as a gratitude to the production house. She made her directorial debut with a Malayalam film on a budget of 3 lakhs. She made her directorial debut in Telugu with "Meena" and directed 40 films in Telugu and one film each in Malayalam (directorial debut film) and Tamil ("Kungumachimizh"). The actress-director was based in Hyderabad and managed Padmalaya Studios and Padmalaya Telefilms Ltd.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: Martha Elizabeth Moxley (August 16, 1960 – October 30, 1975) was a 15-year-old American high school student from Greenwich, Connecticut, who was murdered in 1975. Moxley was last seen alive spending time at the home of the Skakel family, across the street from her home in Belle Haven. Michael Skakel, also aged 15 at the time, was convicted in 2002 of murdering Moxley and was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. In 2013, Skakel was granted a new trial by a Connecticut judge who ruled that his counsel had been inadequate so he was then released on $1.2 million bail. On December 30, 2016, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled 4–3 to reinstate Skakel's conviction. The Connecticut Supreme Court reversed itself on May 4, 2018, and ordered a new trial. On October 30, 2020, the 45th anniversary of Moxley's murder, the state of Connecticut announced it would not retry Skakel for Moxley's murder.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: The case attracted worldwide publicity, as Skakel is a nephew of Ethel Skakel Kennedy, the widow of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: On the evening of October 30, 1975, Martha Moxley left with friends to participate in "mischief night", in which neighborhood youths would ring bells and pull pranks such as toilet papering houses. According to friends, Moxley began flirting with, and eventually kissed, Thomas Skakel, the older brother of Michael Skakel. Moxley was last seen "falling together behind the fence" with Thomas, near the pool in the Skakel backyard, at around 9:30 p.m.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: The next day, Moxley's body was found beneath a tree in her family's backyard. Her pants and underwear were pulled down, but she had not been sexually assaulted. Pieces of a broken six-iron golf club were found near the body. An autopsy indicated that she had been both bludgeoned and stabbed with the club, which was traced back to the Skakel residence.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: Thomas Skakel was the last person seen with Moxley on the night of the murder. He became the prime suspect, but his father forbade access to his school and mental health records. Kenneth Littleton, who had started working as a live-in tutor for the Skakel family only hours before the murder, also became a prime suspect. However, no one was charged, and the case languished for decades. In the meantime, several books were published about the murder, including Dominick Dunne's fictional account of the case, "A Season in Purgatory" (1993); Mark Fuhrman's nonfiction "Murder in Greenwich" (1998), and Timothy Dumas' nonfiction "A Wealth of Evil" (1999).


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: Over the years, both Thomas and Michael Skakel significantly changed their alibis for the night of Moxley's murder. Michael claimed that he had been window-peeping and masturbating in a tree beside the Moxley property from 11:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. Two former students from Élan School, a treatment center for troubled youths, testified they heard Michael confess to killing Moxley with a golf club. One of the former students, Gregory Coleman, testified that Michael was given special privileges and had bragged, "I'm going to get away with murder. I'm a Kennedy."


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: When William Kennedy Smith was tried (and acquitted) for rape in 1991, a rumor surfaced that he had been present at the Skakel house on the night of Moxley's death, with the clear insinuation that he might have been involved. Although this proved to be unfounded, it resulted in a new investigation of the then-cold case. The Sutton Associates, a private detective agency hired by Rushton Skakel in 1991, conducted its own investigation of the killing. The Sutton report, later leaked to the media, revealed that both Thomas and Michael altered their stories about their activities the night of the murder.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: In 1993, author Dominick Dunne, father of murdered actress Dominique Dunne, published "A Season in Purgatory", a fictional story closely resembling the Moxley case. Mark Fuhrman's 1998 book "Murder in Greenwich" named Michael Skakel as the murderer and pointed out numerous mistakes made during the original police investigation. Even in the years before the Dunne and Fuhrman books, Greenwich police detectives Steve Carroll and Frank Garr, as well as police reporter Leonard Levitt, had become convinced that Skakel was the killer.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: In June 1998, a rarely invoked one-man grand jury was convened to review the evidence of the case. After an eighteen-month investigation, it was decided there was enough evidence to charge Michael Skakel with murder. On January 9, 2000, an arrest warrant was issued for an unnamed juvenile for Moxley's murder. Skakel surrendered to authorities later that day. He was released shortly thereafter on $500,000 bail. On March 14, Skakel was arraigned for murder in a juvenile court, since he was 15 years old at the time of Moxley's murder. On January 31, 2001, a judge ruled that Skakel would be tried as an adult.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: Skakel's trial began on May 7, 2002, in Norwalk, Connecticut. He was represented by attorney Michael Sherman. Skakel's alibi was that at the time of the murder he was at his cousin's house. During the trial, the jury heard part of a taped book proposal, which included Skakel speaking about masturbating in a tree on the night of the murder – possibly the same tree under which Moxley's body was found the next morning. In the book proposal, Skakel did not admit to committing the murder. Prosecutors took words from the book proposal and overlaid them on graphic images of Moxley's dead body in a computerized, multimedia presentation shown to jurors during closing arguments. In the audiotape, Skakel said that he was afraid he might have been seen the previous night "jerking off", and had panicked. Though the jury heard the whole tape, during the closing arguments the prosecutor did not play the portion of the audiotape in which Skakel had said "jerking off", giving the impression that he was confessing to the murder.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: On June 7, 2002, Skakel was found guilty of murdering Moxley and was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. He was assigned to the Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown, Connecticut.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: The prosecutors' use of the multimedia presentation during closing arguments was included in Skakel's initial appeal. In their brief responding to that appeal, the prosecution argued:


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: Michael Christopher Skakel (born September 19, 1960) is the fifth of seven children, born to Rushton Walter Skakel and Anne Reynolds. Rushton's sister Ethel is the widow of U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Skakel's grandfather George was the founder of Great Lakes Carbon Corporation, a coal company that was one of the largest and wealthiest privately held corporations in the United States.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: The Skakel family lived in the affluent neighborhood of Belle Haven in Greenwich, Connecticut. After his mother's death from brain cancer in 1973, Skakel began abusing alcohol. He was a poor student and reportedly flunked out of a dozen schools. He also struggled for years with dyslexia, which went undiagnosed until he was aged 26. Skakel's cousin, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., later wrote that he was a "small sensitive child – the runt of the litter with a harsh and occasionally violent alcoholic father who both ignored and abused him." According to neighbors and family friends, the Skakel children were given unlimited amounts of money and were largely unsupervised.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: In 1978, Skakel was arrested for drunk driving in New York State. To avoid criminal charges, his family sent him to the Élan School in Poland, Maine, where he purportedly received treatment for alcoholism. He ran away from the school twice before leaving after two years. Skakel later attended Curry College in Milton, Massachusetts and earned a bachelor's degree in English. During the 1980s, he attended several drug rehabilitation facilities before finally becoming sober in his twenties. Skakel also pursued a career as a professional athlete; he competed on the international speed skiing circuit and tried out for the speed skiing demonstration team that appeared at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France. In 1991, Skakel married professional golfer Margot Sheridan, with whom he has one child. Sheridan filed for divorce shortly after Skakel was arrested for Moxley's murder in January 2000. Their divorce was finalized in 2001.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: In January 2003, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wrote a controversial article in "The Atlantic Monthly", entitled "A Miscarriage of Justice," insisting that Skakel's indictment "was triggered by an inflamed media and that an innocent man is now in prison." Kennedy argued there was more evidence suggesting that Kenneth Littleton, the Skakel family's live-in tutor, had killed Moxley. He also called Dominick Dunne the "driving force" behind Skakel's prosecution. In July 2016, Kennedy released a book defending Skakel entitled "Framed".


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: Skakel continued to fight his conviction. In November 2003, he appealed to the Connecticut Supreme Court, arguing that the trial court erred because the case should have been heard in juvenile court rather than in Superior Court, that the statute of limitations had expired on the charges against him and that there was prosecutorial misconduct. On January 12, 2006, the Connecticut Supreme Court rejected Skakel's claims and affirmed his conviction. Subsequently, Skakel retained attorney and former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, who filed a petition for a writ of "certiorari" on behalf of Skakel before the U.S. Supreme Court on July 12, 2006. On November 13, 2006, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: In 2007, Skakel's new attorneys, Hope Seeley and Hubert Santos, filed petitions for a writ of "habeas corpus" and a motion for a new trial in the Connecticut trial court that had originally heard his case, based on a theory involving Gitano "Tony" Bryant, cousin of Los Angeles Lakers player Kobe Bryant and a former classmate of Skakel at the private Brunswick School in Greenwich. In a videotaped August 2003 interview with Vito Colucci, a private investigator hired by Skakel, Bryant said that on the night of Moxley's murder, one of his friends had wanted to rape her. Bryant said he did not previously come forward because his mother had warned him that as a Black man he would be framed for the unsolved murder. A two-week hearing in April 2007 allowed the presentation of this hearsay evidence, among other matters. In September 2007, Skakel's attorneys filed a petition, based in part on Bryant's claims, asking for a new trial. Prosecutors formally responded that Bryant may have made up the story to sell a play about the case.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: The new Skakel defense team also hired a full-time investigative team to review existing and new information – particularly a book written about Élan School – in preparation for the hearing. They argued that no Élan residents who knew Skakel, other than Gregory Coleman, had ever spoken about Skakel's confession to anyone, including to the author of the book.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: On October 25, 2007, a Superior Court judge denied the request for a new trial, saying Bryant's testimony was not credible and there was no evidence of prosecutorial misconduct in the original trial.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: Skakel's lawyer appealed this decision to the Connecticut Supreme Court. On March 26, 2009, a five-judge panel of the court heard arguments on this appeal. On April 12, 2010, the panel ruled 4–1 against Skakel's appeal.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: Skakel then appealed based on charge of incompetence against Michael Sherman, his lead attorney at the trial. In an April 2013 hearing in Vernon, Connecticut, Skakel testified that Sherman, rather than focusing on Skakel's defense, instead had basked in celebrity. Skakel also claimed that Sherman was more interested in collecting fees to settle Sherman's own financial problems than in defending Skakel. Sherman testified in defense of his actions, while continuing to maintain his belief in Skakel's innocence in the Moxley case.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: Skakel had been imprisoned at the MacDougall-Walker Correctional Institution in Suffield, Connecticut. On January 24, 2012, Skakel and his attorneys argued for a sentence reduction, claiming that he should have been tried in juvenile court. On March 5, 2012, Skakel lost his bid for a sentence reduction.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: Skakel's first parole hearing was held on October 24, 2012. Skakel was denied parole. He continued to deny the killing. Skakel's next parole hearing was scheduled for October 2017.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: On October 23, 2013, Skakel was granted a new trial by Connecticut judge Thomas A. Bishop, who ruled that Michael Sherman failed to adequately represent Skakel when he was convicted in 2002. Prosecutors stated they would appeal the decision. John Moxley, the victim's brother, said that the ruling took his family by surprise and that the family hoped the state would win on appeal.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: In his ruling, Bishop wrote that defense in such a case requires attention to detail, an energetic investigation and a coherent plan of defense, stating:


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: On November 21, 2013, Skakel was released on a $1.2 million bond along with other conditions: he was to be monitored with a GPS device; could have no contact with Moxley's family; must periodically check in over the phone; and would not be allowed to leave the state of Connecticut unless granted permission, although he had since relocated to Westchester County, New York.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: In December 2016, the Connecticut Supreme Court reinstated Skakel's murder conviction with a 4–3 majority decision, writing that his conviction was the result of "overwhelming" evidence presented by prosecutors and that his legal representation had been adequate.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: In January 2018, prosecutors asked the Connecticut Supreme Court to revoke Skakel's bail and to return him to prison to resume serving his sentence. However, on May 4, the Connecticut Supreme Court vacated Skakel's conviction and ordered a new trial. The court ruled that Sherman had "rendered ineffective assistance" when he failed to contact an alibi witness whose name had been provided by Skakel and that as a result, Skakel was deprived of a fair trial. State prosecutors in Stamford had the power to call for a new trial against Skakel.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: On October 30, 2020, chief state's attorney Richard Colangelo informed the Superior Court that Skakel would not be retried.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: The documentary TV series "City Confidential" covered the Martha Moxley murder in its episode titled "Greenwich: Who Killed Martha Moxley?", originally aired on October 20, 1999.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: The American Court TV (now TruTV) television series "Mugshots" featured the case in an episode entitled "Michael Skakel - A Killing in Greenwich" which aired in 2003.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: In 2014, Connecticut-born rapper Apathy released a song entitled "Martha Moxley (Rest in Peace)" featuring a sample from George Michael's "Careless Whisper". The song repeatedly, but subtly, references the event, referring to Moxley and Skakel by name.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: In September 2017, the rights to Kennedy's book "Framed" were optioned by FX Productions to develop a multi-part television series.


title: Murder of Martha Moxley

text: In June 2019, Oxygen premiered a three-part documentary entitled "Murder and Justice: The Case of Martha Moxley", hosted by legal analyst and former prosecutor Laura Coates.


title: Charlotte Hope

text: Charlotte Hope is an English actress. She first achieved recognition for her recurring role as Myranda in the third through fifth seasons of the HBO fantasy series "Game of Thrones" (2013–2016). Hope gained further prominence in the lead role of Catherine of Aragon on the Starz historical drama series "The Spanish Princess" (2019–2020), her first starring performance. In 2020, she appeared as a series regular on the second season of the ITV thriller "Bancroft" and the Netflix biographical drama "The English Game". Outside television, Hope has appeared in the biographic romance film "The Theory of Everything" (2014) and the horror film "The Nun" (2018). She also voiced one of the playable characters in the action-adventure video game "We Happy Few" (2018).


title: Charlotte Hope

text: Hope was born in Salisbury and grew up in Lower Daggons, a rural hamlet in the New Forest District of Hampshire. Her younger sister Emily is a member of the band Police Dog Hogan. Their father is a barrister and former jockey and their mother stayed at home, having previously worked in PR.


title: Charlotte Hope

text: Hope attended boarding school. She first discovered acting through a drama class at school. She went on to study French and Spanish at the University of Oxford. Whilst there, she found an agent and began taking on theatre and commercial gigs. Upon graduation from Oxford, Hope spent a year in Paris training in acting at L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq.


title: Charlotte Hope

text: In 2013, Hope began playing the role of Ramsay Bolton's sadistic lover, Myranda, in HBO's fantasy drama series "Game of Thrones". She continued in the role until the character died during the fifth season and her body was found in the sixth-season premiere. In 2014, she guest starred in the first season of "The Musketeers", playing the role of Charlotte Mellendorf. That same year, she appeared in the film "The Theory of Everything", portraying Philippa Hawking, the younger sister of Stephen Hawking. In 2015, she had a leading role in the British gangster film "North v South" as Willow Clarke. That same year, Hope appeared in the music video "Beautiful to Me" by Olly Murs.


title: Charlotte Hope

text: In 2016, Hope appeared in the biographical romantic drama "A United Kingdom" and the romantic thriller "Allied". In 2017, she had a supporting role in the drama film "Three Christs" and in 2018, she co-starred in the horror film "The Nun".


title: Charlotte Hope

text: Hope has also done theatre work, including Broadway shows such as "Buried Child" where she played the role of Shelly in 2016. In 2017 she played the role of Zara in Almeida Theatre's "Albion" and in 2018 she played as Dr. Michaels' mother in The New Group's "Good for Otto."


title: Charlotte Hope

text: In March 2018, Hope was cast in the lead role of the Starz series "The Spanish Princess", in which she plays Catherine of Aragon. The show is a follow up to "The White Queen" and "The White Princess".


title: Charlotte Hope

text: In January 2020, she appeared as Annabel Connors, a main character in Season 2 of "Bancroft" opposite Sarah Parish. Having worked with Danish director Birgitte Stærmouse on the first season of "The Spanish Princess", the pair teamed up again for Netflix's miniseries "The English Game", which also aired in 2020.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Leland Bruce Sklar (born May 28, 1947) is an American bassist and session musician. He was a member of the Los Angeles-based instrumental group The Section, who served as the "de facto" house band of Asylum Records and were one of the progenitors of the soft rock sound prevalent on top-40 radio in the 1970s and 1980s. Besides appearing as the backing band on numerous recordings by artists such as James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Carole King, and Linda Ronstadt, The Section released three solo albums of instrumental rock. Both in The Section and separately, Sklar has contributed to over 2,000 albums as a session and touring musician. He has toured with James Taylor, Phil Collins, Toto, Lyle Lovett and other major acts. He has also been recorded on many soundtracks to motion pictures and television shows.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Leland Bruce Sklar was born May 28, 1947 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His mother's family was from Duluth, Minnesota. His father's family was from Milwaukee. Originally, the paternal side of the family came from Odessa, Ukraine. Sklar is a Ukrainian surname meaning glazier, a person whose profession is fitting glass into windows and doors.


title: Leland Sklar

text: When Leland was four, his family and he moved to Van Nuys, California, a central San Fernando Valley neighborhood in the northwest section of metropolitan Los Angeles.


title: Leland Sklar

text: At five, Sklar was inspired to take up classical piano from watching Liberace on TV. Sklar's mother already had a baby grand piano in the home. The Liberace Show completely captivated young Leland, Liberace's style and panache, the candelabra and his older brother George on the violin. Sklar started studying piano just after turning five years old. His natural talent and passion for the instrument saw him excel. By the time he was seven he had won awards from the Hollywood Bowl Association as the most accomplished young pianist in Los Angeles for his age group. By the time he was twelve, though, he was completely burned out. He had a piano teacher who he believes was living out her lack of a career through him.


title: Leland Sklar

text: He entered junior high at Birmingham High School, a combined high school of grades 7-12, and was diverted from the crowded field of pianists by his orchestra teacher, Mr. Ted Lynn, to an old blonde Kay upright bass. Sklar took to it immediately and began playing string bass in the orchestra and dance band. In high school, Sklar was in the marching band and played bass drum for the first year. He then sought other options. Being a bass player, he was given three choices: the bass drum, Sousaphone or drum major. Sklar chose to become one of the dual drum majors. He was sent to Redlands University for a summer course in being a drum major and designing half time shows. He still has his baton. Sklar graduated from Birmingham High School in 1965 and stopped shaving, the beginning of his iconic beard.


title: Leland Sklar

text: After The Beatles hit, things changed dramatically. As soon as the guitar players and piano players got amplifiers, Sklar's upright bass couldn't compete with their volume. Across the street from the American Federation of Musicians Local 47 building in Hollywood is now a music store called Stein on Vine. It used to be under the Musicians Union when it was just the Stein Music Co. Sklar and his father went there and his father bought him a Melody bass and a St. George amp. The whole thing probably cost $80 at the time. Soon after that, Sklar was only getting calls for electric bass work.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Between 1965 and 1970, Sklar attended San Fernando Valley State College (now called CSUN - Sea Sun - California State University, Northridge). He began as a music major, but became disillusioned in the music department after two years when he realized the curriculum was geared more toward producing music teachers than towards performance. He went to the administration building and took a battery of aptitude tests and found his highest aptitudes were in art and science. So, he changed to co-majors in art and science with the thought of becoming a medical or technical illustrator.


title: Leland Sklar

text: While at San Fernando Valley State, Sklar played in the orchestra. For the first two years, Sklar played in the string bass section, which consisted of himself and Daryl Dragon, who would later become the Captain of the Captain & Tennille. Also during this period, Sklar was in a band called Little John Farm with singer/guitarist Denny "Steve" Aaberg, Dennis Dragon on drums, and Doug Dragon on B3 organ. Dennis and Doug Dragon were Daryl's two brothers. Incidentally, Sklar attended San Fernando Valley State with Tom Scott, the great sax player, and actor/comedian Cheech Marin.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Sklar spent five years at San Fernando Valley State, but never graduated, because his own music career would intervene.


title: Leland Sklar

text: In the 1960s, Sklar was in numerous bands, including Mike and the Mad Men, The Percolators, The Comfortable Charos, The Brimstones, and The El Dorados. Sometimes he was in five bands at one time, doing all kinds of music, trying to find himself. The Brimstones (1966) are of note because Sklar played together with guitarist Dan Dugmore his oldest friend in the music business. Sklar has commented that the music business is based on networking. He tried to meet as many people as possible, worked really hard, and hoped for the best. Two other bands from this period were important to his career: Group Therapy (1967) and Wolfgang (1969).


title: Leland Sklar

text: In 1967, Group Therapy had been signed to the Canterbury label and went into United Studios in Hollywood to record. However, the young musicians was so inexperienced they weren't allowed to play their instruments. The band at the time consisted of David Finer (vocals and rhythm guitar) and Jeff Finer (vocals), Greg Wood (vocals), Lee Sklar (bass and vocals), and Ira Ingber (lead guitar - brother of Elliot Ingber, a founding member of The Mothers Of Invention and Fraternity of Man). The group did do their own vocals, but the music was recorded by the legendary Wrecking Crew. Carol Kaye and Bobby West were on bass, Hal Blaine was on drums, and Jim Gordon was the percussionist. Mike (Michel) Rubini, Mike Melvoin, and Larry Knechtel were the keyboard players. Mike Deasy, Dennis Budimir, Al Casey and Tommy Tedesco were on guitars. Sklar said he was intimidated by the skill of these players and didn't believe he could do what they did, but three and a half years later he was working with them every day. At least four tracks were cut, "Magic in the Air," "Bad News," "Little Bird," and "Million Dollar Movie". Test pressings were made of the latter two songs, but never released. A single of "Magic in the Air" as the A-side and "Bad News" as the B-side was released and broke into the Billboard Hot 100, affording Group Therapy the opportunity to open for The Byrds and Canned Heat at the Anaheim Convention Center and for The Seeds at Cal State Northridge. The tracks were produced by Mike Post. It was through this connection that Sklar would later work with Post on every one of his TV shows: The Rockford Files, Magnum, P.I., Hill Street Blues, The A-Team, to name a few.


title: Leland Sklar

text: In 1969, Sklar was the bass player for a hard rock band managed by Bill Graham called Wolfgang, consisting of Bryn Haworth, Ricky Lancelotti, Kevin Kelley, Randy Zacuto and Warren 'Bugs' Pemberton. They opened for Led Zeppelin, but their only recordings were unreleased demo tracks. It was during that time Sklar met James Taylor, when a friend of Wolfgang's drummer Bugs Pemberton, John Fischbach, co-owner of Crystal Sound on Vine Street in Hollywood, brought his friend James Taylor around to Wolfgang's rehearsal house in Sunland. Taylor spent a couple of days with the band. Later, Taylor was offered an appearance at the Troubadour and, remembering Sklar, he had his manager Peter Asher invite Sklar to play bass at that show. Both musicians thought that the work would be short-term, but Taylor's career took off soon thereafter with his first hit record, Sweet Baby James. Sklar became part of Taylor's backing band, along with Danny Kortchmar, Russ Kunkel, and Carole King, all joining Taylor in his rise to fame. Soon, with that exposure, Sklar was being asked to record with many other artists.


title: Leland Sklar

text: In the 1970s, Sklar worked together so frequently with drummer Russ Kunkel, guitarist Danny Kortchmar, and keyboardist Craig Doerge, who replaced King after her own rise to stardom, that they became "The Section," a distinction Taylor had bestowed upon them as his rhythm section. They backed other artists, such as Jackson Browne. The Section recorded three rock fusion albums of their own under that name, in 1972, 1973 and 1977. With little label support, however, The Section disbanded in 1978, in favor of more lucrative endeavors.


title: Leland Sklar

text: In the 1980s, Sklar focused on session work in Los Angeles, Nashville, and Europe. However, with the advent of CDs and digital copying, album revenue dropped and session budgets shrank. Live performances and touring became more important to the music industry.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Sklar worked on the Phil Collins album "No Jacket Required" and toured as part of Collins' band on The No Jacket Required World Tour from February through July 1985. Sklar worked again with Collins on the album "...But Seriously" in 1989 and toured with the Seriously, Live! World Tour, which ran between February and October 1990, covering 121 dates. Sklar toured again with Collins on The First Final Farewell Tour (2004–2005) and the Not Dead Yet Tour (2017–2019).


title: Leland Sklar

text: In 1993 while recording at The Site in Marin County on what would become Linda Ronstadt's album Winter Light, Sklar got a phone call from Michael Frondelli, who ran Capitol Records Studios and was producing a band, the Barefoot Servants. They needed a bass player and would he be interested? Frondelli sent Sklar a demo cassette and, after three notes, Sklar said "count me in". Sklar had never met the three other seasoned musicians before: Jon Butcher (guitar, vocals), Ben Schultz (guitar, mandolin, slide guitar), and Ray Brinker (drums, percussion). The foursome rehearsed and cut the first, self-titled album, Barefoot Servants, live in the studio. The band followed by going on The Southern Spirit Tour in 1994 with The Marshall Tucker Band, 38 Special, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and the Outlaws. They called it Bubbapolooza. Over time, the Barefoot Servants became a cult band; the label (Epic) offered little support. Eleven years after their first album, the Barefoot Servants recorded a second album at Ben Schultz's home studio, this time with Neal Wilkinson on drums. They called it Barefoot Servants 2, reminiscent of the line from the Bob Dylan song "All Along the Watchtower". (Jon Butcher is a great admirer of Jimi Hendrix.) The album was released in August 2005 on the Atom Records label.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Sklar performed again with James Taylor, Carole King, Danny Kortchmar and Russ Kunkel in a series of six shows at the Troubadour on November 28–30, 2007 for the 50th Anniversary of the club. They all teamed up again for the Troubadour Reunion Tour in 2010.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Sklar did the Falling In Between Tour with Toto in 2007-2008, filling in for his friend Mike Porcaro, who was stricken with ALS. Sklar united again with Toto in 2016-2017 on the Toto XIV Tour.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Sklar has also toured with Lyle Lovett, Peter Asher, Véronique Sanson, Tracy Chapman, Van Dyke Parks, and Judith Owen, among others.


title: Leland Sklar

text: In 2018, reuniting several members of The Section, a new group was formed, The Immediate Family, with Leland Sklar on bass, Russ Kunkel on drums, Danny Kortchmar and Waddy Wachtel on guitars and vocals, and musician/producer Steve Postell on vocals and guitar. The group has toured Japan and released a number of recordings. Their first, eponymously titled, U.S. album, The Immediate Family, was released in 2021. A brief tour of select cities in the U.S. was conducted in November 2021.


title: Leland Sklar

text: In 2020, while idled by the COVID pandemic, Sklar started a YouTube channel, initially to demonstrate the bass parts to a few of the songs he'd played on tour with Phil Collins, but which grew exponentially into a journey of music appreciation and an exploration of his expansive career. Sklar also created a coffee table book, "Everybody Loves Me", of approximately 6000 photos from a collection of over 12,000 images of celebrities and common folk giving him "the finger," which has become his signature gesture. A website to service his book, art prints, T-shirts and other merchandise was developed. He created a web presence for social interaction called Lee's Clubhouse. Sklar has also explored the NFT market with another web site.


title: Leland Sklar

text: On May 6, 2020, Sklar created a Top Ten list of his favorite songs of all time for Spotify. They were "With A Little Help From My Friends" performed by Joe Cocker, "Back in the High Life Again" by Steve Winwood, "Millworker" by James Taylor, "The Lark Ascending" by Ralph Vaughan Williams, "The Rubberband Man" by The Spinners, the title track from the album "No Other" by Gene Clark, "Knock On Wood" by Eddie Floyd, "Behind The Lines - 2015 Remastered" by Phil Collins, "Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um" by Major Lance, and "Harlem Shuffle" by Bob & Earl.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Sklar has stated that his favorite bassist was Rinat Ibragimov, formerly of the London Symphony Orchestra.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Sklar has also been a part of the annual bands assembled in support of the "We Write The Songs" event sponsored by ASCAP at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and the pre-show for the Grammy Awards.


title: Leland Sklar

text: On January 2, 2022, Sklar was seen performing in concert with James Taylor and Carole King in the CNN documentary "Just Call Out My Name."


title: Leland Sklar

text: When Sklar gained notoriety in 1970, he was playing a 1962 Fender Jazz Bass, his first really good bass, which he carved up with the artistic flair of the time. He calls it his Peace/Love bass. He played the bass on James Taylor's One Man Dog, on the early Section albums, and on Billy Cobham's Spectrum. He played it exclusively until 1974.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Sklar's favorite instrument came next, an electric bass constructed by John Carruthers, the repairman at Westwood Music, in 1973. It was customized from various bass parts, consisting of a 1962 Fender Precision Bass neck, reshaped to the profile of Sklar's 1962 Fender Jazz Bass neck and fitted with mandolin fret wire, the smallest you can get (and on all of his subsequent basses), an alder Charvel P-Bass body with two sets of first-generation EMG Precision Bass pickups in reversed orientation, routed into J-Bass positions, and power by a 9 volt battery each, a Badass II bridge, and a prototype Hipshot detuner. He refers to it as "Frankenstein". The bass has been used on roughly 85 percent of his recordings.


title: Leland Sklar

text: In 2004, Sklar began playing a signature model five-string bass made by Dingwall Guitars. This was his main bass on tour and was also used in various recordings. The bass uses fanned frets, which result in longer low strings and shorter high strings.


title: Leland Sklar

text: In 2010, Sklar began playing the Warwick Star Bass II, which has since become his main bass in the studio.


title: Leland Sklar

text: In 2013, after years of having been a Warwick Star Bass II user, he became an endorser of that instrument.


title: Leland Sklar

text: At Winter NAMM 2016, Warwick announced their Lee Sklar signature bass, based on the Star Bass but with an offset body shape and a forearm contour.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Previously, Sklar also had signature instruments from Gibson<ref name="GibsonSig/"></ref> and Valley Arts Guitar.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Sklar owns a Washburn AB45 five string acoustic bass which he was not pleased with until he removed the frets, making it a fretless bass. He said, then, "It came alive." He uses black nylon tape wound strings on the Washburn. In his work, he uses fretless sparingly.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Sklar uses GHS Super Steel medium light strings: .040, .058, .080, and .102 inches in diameter. He likes a .040 G-string for its flexibility, facilitating expressive playing. His Dingwall bass has Dingwall strings, with a GHS .040 G-string. On his five string basses, he use GHS Super Steels: .040, .058, .080, .100 and .130 gauge. He uses nylon taped strings on the Washburn.


title: Leland Sklar

text: On the recording sessions for the album "Framed" by Dave Lambert (of the Strawbs) in 1979, Sklar shared bass duties on the project with John Entwistle of The Who. At one point, the men tried out each others' basses and found they were nearly unable to play the other's instrument: Sklar set his action very high and Entwhistle set his string height very low.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Sklar keeps his amplification implementations simple and adaptable. He has three basic Euphonic Audio amp set ups for three specific applications: studio, intimate settings, and larger stage situations. Sklar has been using EA amplification roughly since 2003.


title: Leland Sklar

text: For intimate settings, Sklar uses a Euphonic Audio Doubler amp with an EA cabinet with a single 10" speaker in it (Euphonic Audio Wizzy-110). This is the rig he has used when playing with Judith Owen.


title: Leland Sklar

text: For larger stage venues, Sklar uses an EA iAMP Classic and an EA iAMP Pro for redundancy with a four 10" speaker bottom (Euphonic Audio NL-410W) and optionally attached to that is a Euphonic single 12" speaker cabinet (Euphonic Audio NL-112) with a Yamaha Subkick placed 1/2" in front of it. He blends the signal from a DI (direct input) and the Subkick. This is the rig he used when playing with Phil Collins, James Taylor and Carole King, Toto, and with The Immediate Family. When playing with Lyle Lovett, the 12" cabinet and Subkick were omitted.


title: Leland Sklar

text: Sklar has Moog Taurus pedals and Fast Forward Designs Midi Step pedals which he used on the Phil Collins song "In the Air Tonight".


title: Leland Sklar

text: Sklar uses Cordial cables, a Tube Works DI (direct input) box, and a Boss OC-2 Octave divider. He is known to have used a Petersen tuner, as well as a TC Electronics "polytuner" which he has said is incredibly accurate and unobtrusive.


title: Good Vibrations

text: "Good Vibrations" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys that was composed by Brian Wilson with lyrics by Mike Love. It was released as a single on October 10, 1966 and was an immediate critical and commercial hit, topping record charts in several countries including the United States and the United Kingdom. Characterized by its complex soundscapes, episodic structure and subversions of pop music formula, it was the most expensive single ever recorded. "Good Vibrations" later became widely acclaimed as one of the finest and most important works of the rock era.


title: Good Vibrations

text: Also produced by Wilson, the title derived from his fascination with cosmic vibrations, as his mother would tell him as a child that dogs sometimes bark at people in response to their "bad vibrations". He used the concept to suggest extrasensory perception, while Love's lyrics were inspired by the nascent Flower Power movement. The song was written as it was recorded and in a similar fashion to other compositions from Wilson's "Smile" period. It was issued as a standalone single, backed with "Let's Go Away for Awhile", and was to be included on the never-finished album "Smile". Instead, the track appeared on the September 1967 release "Smiley Smile".


title: Good Vibrations

text: The making of "Good Vibrations" was unprecedented for any kind of recording. Building on his approach for "Pet Sounds", Wilson recorded a surplus of short, interchangeable musical fragments with his bandmates and a host of session musicians at four different Hollywood studios from February to September 1966, a process reflected in the song's several dramatic shifts in key, texture, instrumentation and mood. Over 90 hours of tape was consumed in the sessions, with the total cost of production estimated to be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Band publicist Derek Taylor dubbed the unusual work a "pocket symphony". It helped develop the use of the studio as an instrument and heralded a wave of pop experimentation and the onset of psychedelic and progressive rock. The track featured a novel mix of instruments, including jaw harp and Electro-Theremin (also called Tannerin), and although the latter is not a true theremin, the song's success led to a renewed interest and sales of theremins and synthesizers.


title: Good Vibrations

text: "Good Vibrations" received a Grammy nomination for Best Vocal Group performance in 1966 and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994. The song was voted number one in "Mojo"s "Top 100 Records of All Time" and number six on "Rolling Stone"s "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and it was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of the "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". In later years, the song has been cited as a forerunner to the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" (1967) and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" (1975). A 1976 cover version by Todd Rundgren peaked at number 34 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. The Beach Boys followed up "Good Vibrations" with another single pieced from sections, "Heroes and Villains" (1967), but it was less successful.


title: Good Vibrations

text: The Beach Boys' leader, Brian Wilson, was responsible for the musical composition and virtually all of the arrangement for "Good Vibrations". Most of the song's structure and arrangement was written as it was recorded. During the recording sessions for the 1966 album "Pet Sounds", Wilson began changing his writing process. For "Good Vibrations", Wilson said, "I had a lot of unfinished ideas, fragments of music I called 'feels.' Each feel represented a mood or an emotion I'd felt, and I planned to fit them together like a mosaic." Engineer Chuck Britz is quoted saying that Wilson considered the song to be "his whole life performance in one track". Wilson stated: "I was an energetic 23-year-old. ... I said: 'This is going to be better than [the Phil Spector production] "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'.


title: Good Vibrations

text: Wilson said that "Good Vibrations" was inspired by his mother: "[She] used to tell me about vibrations. I didn't really understand too much of what it meant when I was just a boy. It scared me, the word 'vibrations.' She told me about dogs that would bark at people and then not bark at others, that a dog would pick up vibrations from these people that you can't see, but you can feel." Brian first enlisted "Pet Sounds" lyricist Tony Asher for help in putting words to the idea. When Brian presented the song on piano, Asher thought that it had an interesting premise with the potential for hit status, but could not fathom the end result due to Brian's primitive piano playing style. Asher remembered:


title: Good Vibrations

text: Wilson wanted to call the song "Good Vibes", but Asher advised that it was "lightweight use of the language", and suggested that "Good Vibrations" would sound less "trendy". The two proceeded to write lyrics for the verses that were ultimately discarded.


title: Good Vibrations

text: From the start, Wilson envisioned a theremin for the track. AllMusic reviewer John Bush pointed out: "Radio listeners could easily pick up the link between the title and the obviously electronic riffs sounding in the background of the chorus, but Wilson's use of the theremin added another delicious parallel—between the single's theme and its use of an instrument the player never even touched."


title: Good Vibrations

text: "Good Vibrations" does not technically feature a theremin, but rather an Electro-Theremin, which is physically controlled by a knob on the side of the instrument. It was dubbed a "theremin" simply for convenience. At that time, theremins were most often associated with the 1945 Alfred Hitchcock film "Spellbound", but their most common presence was in the theme music for the television sitcom "My Favorite Martian", which ran from 1963 to 1966. Britz speculates: "He just walked in and said, 'I have this new sound for you.' I think he must have heard the sound somewhere and loved it, and built a song around it." It is unclear whether Wilson knew that the instrument was not a real theremin.


title: Good Vibrations

text: Brian credited his brother and bandmate Carl for suggesting the use of a cello on the track. He further stated that its triplet beat on the chorus was his own idea and that it was based on the Crystals' "Da Doo Ron Ron" (1963), produced by Spector. Conversely, arranger and session musician Van Dyke Parks said that it was himself who suggested having the cellist play triplets to Brian. Parks believed that having Brian exploit the cello "to such a hyperbolic degree" was what encouraged the duo to immediately collaborate on the never-finished album "Smile". At some point, Wilson asked Parks to pen lyrics for "Good Vibrations", although Parks declined.


title: Good Vibrations

text: Wilson's cousin and bandmate Mike Love submitted the final lyrics for "Good Vibrations" and contributed its bass-baritone vocals in the chorus. He recalled that when he heard the unfinished backing track: "[It] was already so avant-garde, especially with the theremin, I wondered how our fans were going to relate to it. How's this going to go over in the Midwest or Birmingham? It was such a departure from 'Surfin' U.S.A.' or 'Help Me, Rhonda.'"


title: Good Vibrations

text: Love said that he wrote the words while on the drive to the studio. Feeling that the song could be "the Beach Boys' psychedelic anthem or flower power offering," he based the lyrics on the burgeoning psychedelic music and Flower Power movements occurring in San Francisco and some parts of the Los Angeles area. He described the lyrics as "just a flowery poem. Kind of almost like 'If you’re going to San Francisco be sure to wear flowers in your hair.'" Writing in his 1975 book "The Beach Boys: Southern California Pastoral", Bruce Golden observed:


title: Good Vibrations

text: Capitol Records executives were worried that the lyrics contained psychedelic overtones, and Brian was accused of having based the song's production on his LSD experiences. Brian clarified that the song was written under the influence of marijuana, not LSD. He explained: "I made ‘Good Vibrations’ on drugs; I used drugs to make that. ... I learned how to function behind drugs, and it improved my brain ... it made me more rooted in my sanity." In Steven Gaines's 1986 biography, Wilson is quoted on the lyrics: "We talked about good vibrations with the song and the idea, and we decided on one hand that you could say ... those are sensual things. And then you'd say, 'I'm picking up good vibrations,' which is a contrast against the sensual, the extrasensory perception that we have. That's what we're really talking about."


title: Good Vibrations

text: Wilson said in 2012 that the song's ""gotta keep those good vibrations"" bridge was inspired by Stephen Foster. Bandmate Al Jardine compared that section to Foster and the Negro spiritual "Down by the Riverside". According to Love, the lyric "'she goes with me to a blossom world' was originally meant to be followed by the words 'we find'", but Wilson elected to cut off the line to highlight the bass track linking into the chorus.


title: Good Vibrations

text: "Good Vibrations" established a new method of operation for Wilson. Instead of working on whole songs with clear large-scale syntactical structures, Wilson limited himself to recording short interchangeable fragments (or "modules"). Through the method of tape splicing, each fragment could then be assembled into a linear sequence, allowing any number of larger structures and divergent moods to be produced at a later time. This was the same modular approach used during the sessions for "Smile" and "Smiley Smile". To mask each tape edit, vast reverb decays were added at the mixing and sub-mixing stages.


title: Good Vibrations

text: For instrumentation, Wilson employed the services of "the Wrecking Crew", the nickname for a conglomerate of session musicians active in Los Angeles at that time. Production for "Good Vibrations" spanned more than a dozen recording sessions at four different Hollywood studios, at a time when most pop singles were typically recorded in a day or two. It was reported to have used over 90 hours of magnetic recording tape, with an eventual budget estimated in the tens of thousands, making it the costliest single recorded to that date. Biographer Peter Ames Carlin wrote that Wilson was so puzzled by the arranging of "Good Vibrations" that he would often arrive at a session, consider a few possibilities, and then leave without recording anything, which exacerbated costs.


title: Good Vibrations

text: One estimate of the overall production expenses is between $50,000 and $75,000 (equivalent to $ and $ in ), By comparison, the whole of "Pet Sounds" had cost $70,000 ($), itself an unusually high cost for an album. In 2018, Wilson disputed the $50,000 figure for "Good Vibrations", saying that the overall expenses were closer to $25,000.


title: Good Vibrations

text: Contemporary advertisements reported $10,000 ($) as the track's total production costs. Domenic Priore wrote that the track cost between $10,000 and $15,000 ($). When asked in a 2005 interview if it was true that the Electro-Theremin work alone cost $100,000, Wilson replied "No. $15,000."


title: Good Vibrations

text: The instrumental of the first version of the song was recorded on February 17, 1966, at Gold Star Studios and was logged as a "Pet Sounds" session. On that day's session log, it was given the name "#1 Untitled" or "Good, Good, Good Vibrations", but on its master tape, Wilson distinctly states: "'Good Vibrations' ... take one." After twenty-six takes, a rough mono mix completed the session. Some additional instruments and rough guide vocals were overdubbed on February 23. Brian and Carl shared vocals for this mix.


title: Good Vibrations

text: The original version of "Good Vibrations" contained the characteristics of a "funky rhythm and blues number" and would not yet resemble a "pocket symphony". There was no cello at this juncture, but the Electro-Theremin was present, played by its inventor, Paul Tanner. It was Brian's second ever recorded use of the instrument, just three days after the "Pet Sounds" track "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times". Brian then placed "Good Vibrations" on hold in order to devote attention to the "Pet Sounds" album, which saw release on May 16. More instrumental sections for "Good Vibrations" were recorded between April and June. Brian then forwent additional instrumental tracking until early September, when it was decided to revisit the song's bridge section and apply Electro-Theremin overdubs.


title: Good Vibrations

text: According to Brian's then-new friend David Anderle, during an early stage, Brian considered giving "Good Vibrations" to one of the black R&B groups signed with Warner Bros. Records such as Wilson Pickett, and then at Anderle's suggestion to singer Danny Hutton. He thought about abandoning the track, but after receiving encouragement from Anderle, eventually decided on it as the next Beach Boys single. In the meantime, he worked on writing and recording material for the group's forthcoming album, "Smile".


title: Good Vibrations

text: The first Beach Boy to hear "Good Vibrations" in a semi-completed form, other than Brian, was Carl. Following a performance with the touring group in North Dakota, he remembered: "I came back up into my hotel room one night and the phone rang. It was Brian on the other end. He called me from the recording studio and played this really bizarre sounding music over the phone. There were drums smashing, that kind of stuff, and then it refined itself and got into the cello. It was a real funky track." In 1976, Brian revealed that before the final mixdown, he had been confronted with resistance by members of the group, whom Brian declined to name. The subject of their worries and complaints was the song's length and "modern" sound: "I said no, it's not going to be too long a record, it's going to be just right. ... They didn't quite understand what this jumping from studio to studio was all about. And they couldn't conceive of the record as I did. I saw the record as a totality piece."


title: Good Vibrations

text: The vocals for "Good Vibrations" were recorded at CBS Columbia Square, starting on August 24 and continuing sporadically until the very last day of assembly on September 21. The episodic structure of the composition was continuously revised as the group experimented with different ideas. Brian remembers that he began recording the "bop bop good vibrations" parts first, and that he came up with "the high parts" a week later. Mike Love recalled: "I can remember doing 25–30 vocal overdubs of the same part, and when I mean the same part, I mean same section of a record, maybe no more than two, three, four, five seconds long." Dennis Wilson was to have sung the lead vocal, but due to a bout of laryngitis, Carl replaced him at the last minute. In early September, the master tapes for "Good Vibrations" were stolen. Mysteriously, they reappeared inside Brian's home two days later.


title: Good Vibrations

text: On September 21, Brian completed the track after Tanner added a final Electro-Theremin overdub. In 1976 he elaborated on the event: "It was at Columbia. I remember I had it right in the sack. I could just feel it when I dubbed it down, made the final mix from the 16-track down to mono. It was a feeling of power, it was a rush. A feeling of exaltation. Artistic beauty. It was everything ... I remember saying, 'Oh my God. Sit back and listen to this!'"


title: Good Vibrations

text: There are six unique sections to the piece. Music theorist Daniel Harrison refers to these sections individually as the verse, the refrain (or chorus), the "first episodic digression", the "second episodic digression", the "retro-refrain", and the coda. Each has a distinct musical texture, partly due to the nature of the song's recording. The track's instrumentation changes radically from section to section, and for the AM radio standards of late 1966, the song's final runtime (3 minutes 35 seconds) was considered a "very long" duration. Wilson is quoted in 1979:


title: Good Vibrations

text: He characterized the song as "advanced rhythm and blues". Tom Roland of "American Songwriter" described the piece, "with its interlocking segments—a sort of pop version of the classical sonata, consisting of a series of musical movements". "New York Magazine" compared it to "a fugue with a rhythmic beat". John Bush compared the track's fragmented cut-and-paste style to 1960s experimentalists such as William S. Burroughs. Music journal "Sound on Sound" argued that the song "has as many dramatic changes in mood as a piece of serious classical music lasting more than half an hour". It explained that the song subverts pop forms to a considerable degree:


title: Good Vibrations

text: According to historian Lorenzo Candelaria, "Good Vibrations" has since been marketed as pop music "possibly because it comes across relatively innocent compared with the hard-edged rock we have since come to know." "Uncut" called the song "three minutes and thirty-six seconds of avant-garde pop". "Mixdown" described it as a "masterpiece of avant-pop". The theremin and cello has been called the song's "psychedelic ingredient". In his book discussing music of the counterculture era, James Perrone stated that the song represented a type of impressionistic psychedelia, in particular for its cello playing repeated bass notes and its theremin. Professor of American history John Robert Greene named "Good Vibrations" among examples of psychedelic or acid rock. Stebbins wrote that the song was "replete with sunshine [and] psychedelia". Steve Valdez says that, like "Pet Sounds", Brian was attempting a more experimental rock style.


title: Good Vibrations

text: Comparing "Good Vibrations" to Wilson's previous work "Pet Sounds", biographer Andrew Hickey said that the "best way of thinking about [the song] is that it's taking the lowest common denominator of 'Here Today' and 'God Only Knows' and turned the result into an R&B track. We have the same minor-key change between verse and chorus we've seen throughout "Pet Sounds", the same descending scalar chord sequences, the same mobile bass parts, but here, rather than to express melancholy, these things are used in a way that's as close as Brian Wilson ever got to funky." Author Jon Stebbins adds that "unlike "Pet Sounds" the chorus of 'Good Vibrations' projects a definite 'rock and roll' energy and feel."


title: Good Vibrations

text: According to academic Rikky Rooksby, "Good Vibrations" is an example of Brian Wilson's growing interest in musical development within a composition, something antithetical to popular music of the time. Suppressing tonic strength and cadential drive, the song makes use of descending harmonic motions through scale degrees controlled by a single tonic and "radical disjunctions" in key, texture, instrumentation, and mood while refusing to develop into a predictable formal pattern. It instead develops "under its own power" and "luxuriates in harmonic variety" exemplified by beginning and ending not only in different keys but also in different modes.


title: Good Vibrations

text: "Good Vibrations" begins without introduction in a traditional verse/refrain format, opening with Carl Wilson singing the word "I", a triplet eighth note before the downbeat. The sparse first verse contains a repetition of chords played on a Hammond organ filtered through a Leslie speaker; underneath is a two-bar Fender bass melody. This sequence repeats once (0:15), but with the addition of two piccolos sustaining over a falling flute line. For percussion, bongo drums double the bass rhythm and every fourth-beat is struck by either a tambourine or a bass-drum-and-snare combination, in alternation. The beat projects a triplet feel despite being in time; this is sometimes called a "shuffle beat" or "threes over fours". The chord progression used is i–VII–VI–V, also called an Andalusian cadence. Although the verses begin in the minor mode of E, the mode is not used to express sadness or drudgery. Occurring at the very end of these verses is a passing chord, D.


title: Good Vibrations

text: The refrain (0:25) begins in the newly tonicized relative major G, which suggests III. Providing a backdrop to the Electro-Theremin is a cello and string bass playing a bowed tremolo triplet, a feature that was an exceedingly rare effect in pop music. The Fender bass is steady at one note per beat while tom drums and tambourine provide a backbeat. This time, the rhythm is stable, and is split into four 4-bar sections which gradually build its vocals. The first section consists of only the couplet "I'm picking up good vibrations/she's giving me the excitation" sung by Mike Love in his bass-baritone register; the second repeats the lines and adds an "ooo bop bop" figure, sung in multiple-part harmony; the third time also adds a "good, good, good, good vibrations" in yet a higher harmony. This type of polyphony (counterpoint) is also rare in contemporary popular styles. Each repeat of the vocal lines also transposes up by a whole step, ascending from G to A and then B. It then returns to the verse, thus making a perfect cadence back into E minor. The verse and refrain then repeat without any changes to the patterns of its instrumentation and harmony. This is unusual, in that normally, a song's arrangement adds something once it reaches the second verse.


title: Good Vibrations

text: The first episode (1:41+) begins disjunctively with an abrupt tape splice. The refrain's B, which had received a dominant (V) charge, is now maintained as a tonic (I). There is harmonic ambiguity, in that the chord progression may be either interpreted as I–IV–I (in B) or V–I–V (in E). Stebbins says that this section "might be called a bridge under normal circumstances, but the song's structure takes such an abstract route that traditional labels don't really apply." A new sound is created by tack piano, jaw harp, and bass relegated to strong beats which is subsequently (1:55) augmented by a new electric organ, bass harmonica, and sleigh bells shaken on every beat. The lone line of vocals (aside from non-lexical harmonies) is "I don't know where, but she sends me there" sung in Mike Love's upper-register baritone. This section lasts for ten measures (6 + 2 + 2), which is unexpectedly long in light of previous patterns.


title: Good Vibrations

text: Another tape splice occurs at 2:13, transitioning to an electric organ playing sustained chords set in the key of F accompanied by a maraca shaken on every beat. "Sound on Sound" highlights this change as the "most savage edit in the track ... most people would go straight into a big splash hook-line section. Brian Wilson decided to slow the track even further, moving into a 23-bar section of church organ ... Most arrangers would steer clear of this kind of drop in pace, on the grounds that it would be chart suicide, but not Brian." Harrison says:


title: Good Vibrations

text: The slowed pace is complemented by the lyric ("Gotta keep those loving good vibrations a-happening with her"), sung once first as a solo voice, with the melody repeated an octave higher the second time with an accompanying harmony. This two-part vocal fades as a solo harmonica plays a melody on top of the persistent quarter-note bass line and maraca that maintain the only rhythm throughout Episode 2. The section ends with a five-part harmony vocalizing a whole-note chord that is sustained by reverb for a further four beats. Lambert calls it the song's "wake-up chord at the end of the meditation that transports the concept into a whole new realm: it's an iconic moment among iconic moments. As it rouses us from a blissful dream and echoes into the silence leading into the chorus, it seems to capture every sound and message the song has to say."


title: Good Vibrations

text: A brief break at the end of the second musical digression creates tension which leads into the final sequence of the song. The refrain reappears for an additional five measures, marching through a transpositional structure that begins in B, repeats at A, and then ends at G for an unexpectedly short single measure. The section uses a descending progression, which mirrors the ascending progression of the previous two refrains. There follows a short section of vocalizing in three-part counterpoint that references the original refrain by reproducing upward transposition. However, this time it settles on A, the concluding key of the song. By the end of "Good Vibrations," all seven scale degrees of the opening E-minor tonic are activated on some level.


title: Good Vibrations

text: In a July 1966 advertisement for "Pet Sounds" in "Billboard" magazine, the band thanked the music industry for the sales of their album, and said that "We're moved over the fact that our Pet Sounds brought on nothing but Good Vibrations." This was the first public hint of the new single. Later in the year, Brian told journalist Tom Nolan that the new Beach Boys single was "about a guy who picks up good vibrations from a girl" and that it would be a "monster". He then suggested: "It's still sticking pretty close to that same boy-girl thing, you know, but with a difference. And it's a start, it's definitely a start." Derek Taylor, who had recently been engaged as the band's publicist, is credited for coining the term a "pocket symphony" to describe the song. In a press release for the single, he stated: "Wilson's instinctive talents for mixing sounds could most nearly equate to those of the old painters whose special secret was in the blending of their oils. And what is most amazing about all outstanding creative artists is that they are using only those basic materials which are freely available to everyone else."


title: Good Vibrations

text: To promote the single, four different music videos were shot. The first of these—which had Caleb Deschanel as cameraman—features the group at a fire station, sliding down its pole, and roaming the streets of Los Angeles in a fashion comparable to "The Monkees". The second features the group during vocal rehearsals at United Western Recorders. The third contains footage recorded during the making of "The Beach Boys in London", a documentary by Peter Whitehead of their concert performances. The fourth clip is an alternative edit of the third. Brian also made a rare television appearance on local station KHJ-TV for its "Teen Rock and Roll Dance Program", introducing the song to the show's in-studio audience and presenting an exclusive preview of the completed record.


title: Good Vibrations

text: On October 15, 1966, "Billboard" predicted that the single would reach the top 20 in the "Billboard" Hot 100 chart. "Good Vibrations" was the Beach Boys' third US number one hit, after "I Get Around" and "Help Me, Rhonda", reaching the top of the Hot 100 in December. It was also their first number one in Britain. The single sold over 230,000 copies in the US within four days of its release and entered the "Cash Box" chart at number 61 on October 22. In the UK, the song sold over 50,000 copies in the first 15 days of its release. "Good Vibrations" quickly became the Beach Boys' first million-selling single. In December 1966, the record was their first single certified gold by the RIAA for sales of one million copies. On March 30, 2016, the digital single was certified platinum by the RIAA for the same sales level.