title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: The accompanying music video for "Because of You" was directed by Vadim Perelman and was produced by Rhonda Vernet. Clarkson wrote the treatment for the video herself in order to reflect the pain that she felt due to her parents' divorce. Nevertheless, Clarkson also allowed Perelman to take control of the production of the video. According to Perelman, he wanted to create a disconnection to show "that this kind of dysfunctional family can exist anywhere." In an interview with MTV News, Clarkson confessed that the video is sad, rationalizing, "It's a sad song, so the video obviously has to follow that. But it ends really happy and everything and the family, my family, ends up breaking the cycle of my parents." Since the music video deals specifically with her parents' divorce, Clarkson had to seek for her parents' permission. She explained,


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: "It's very close to home [for me]. I OK'd it with my family and everything because they think it's important, because we're obviously very different now than we were when we were younger. And it's important for people to see that raw kind of emotion that happens in life. It sucks sometimes, so it's important to see that I think. And that's what we're portraying in the video."


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: In the video, the younger version of Clarkson is played by Kennedy Nöel, the daughter of her musical director, Jason Halbert. The video premiered on October 3, 2005, on "Total Request Live".


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: The video starts at the Clarksons' household. There, she and her husband are engaged in a heated argument and he threatens to smash down a picture of the family at one point. Time freezes still and her husband becomes immobile; Clarkson, however, is immune to this. Looking around her house, she sees her younger self. Hand in hand, the younger and older versions of Clarkson relive her troubled childhood as various painful memories are seen, such as the younger Clarkson making a picture for her father who tosses it into the sink while talking on the phone, and Clarkson's mother making an unappreciated dinner for her father as she puts the father's dinner into the bin on a stormy evening. These events drive her mother to the point of taking pills before closing the door in the younger Clarkson's face, so that she doesn't see her starting to cry. The breaking point is finally seen when Clarkson's parents have a physical fight and throw objects at each other. Soon after, Clarkson's father packs his bags and leaves despite the younger Clarkson's pleas for him to stay. The older Clarkson runs back in time to the present, and instead of fighting with her husband, they make up. They then see that their daughter in the video had seen them fight, and they embrace her and each other. Throughout the music video, Clarkson is shown singing on the front porch, her mother's bed and a room full of mirrors, reflecting an image of her younger self.


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: Elizabeth Black of VH1 ranked the music video at number four in her list of "Five Emotive Music Video Performances." She reasoned, "Kelly Clarkson practically sobs her way through this hurt and angry expression of the pain that the narrator's father has caused her through his absence and lack of love." The same opinion was echoed by Johnni Macke of E! who felt that watching the music video was heartbreaking. She explained, "It really paints a picture of the heartbreak that comes from your family fighting in front of you. Clarkson gets real as she sings the sad lyrics and witnesses the sadness that comes when someone breaks your family into pieces." The music video won the category of Best Female Video at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards. This marks the second time Clarkson has won the same category two years in a row; her first win in the category was at the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards for the music video of "Since U Been Gone." The music video was also nominated in the category of Viewer's Choice Award, but lost to Fall Out Boy's "Dance, Dance" (2005). At the 2006 MuchMusic Video Awards, the music video won the category of . The video was also nominated at the 2006 MTV Australia Video Music Awards in the category of Best Pop Video, but lost to Ashlee Simpson's "Boyfriend" (2005). According to Jocelyn Vena of MTV, the video for "Because of You" was referenced in Taylor Swift's music video for "Mine" (2010), writing "When Swift's character remembers the fights her parents used to have, her memories mirror Clarkson's attempts to exorcise the demons of her past to find love in her future."


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: Clarkson performed "Because of You" at the 48th Grammy Awards which took place on February 8, 2006, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Donning a red dress and singing from beside a grand piano, her performance in that event garnered positive reviews from critics. Elysa Gardner of "USA Today" lauded Clarkson's performance and ranked it as one of the three best performances, writing, "The pre-performance clip of a girlish-looking Clarkson emphasized how little Kelly has matured. The girl most likely to escape the "American Idol" stigma was in fine, creamy voice, and kept the Mariah-esque riffing to a minimum." Robert Lloyd of the "Los Angeles Times" considered Clarkson's performance as one of the highlights in the event and described her performance as a "thin-skinned rendition [...] in which her whole being seemed involved." Yahoo! Music praised Clarkson's rendition of the song, calling it "perfectly fine" despite the saying that it was "a little reminiscent of those many mediocre, superficial ballads trotted out on 'Idol.'" In 2016, the performance was listed by "Billboard" as one of Clarkson's ten "most powerful and undeniable performances." Jason Scott of "Billboard" commented, "Here, Clarkson serves up her signature power ballad backed by lush orchestration, sending chills through the crowd shortly before picking up two statues: best pop vocal album for "Breakaway" and best female pop vocal performance for "Since U Been Gone."


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: On August 21, 2007, Clarkson performed "Because of You" and "Never Again" (2007) on the fifth season of "Canadian Idol". "Because of You" was performed at the My December Tour (2007). Clarkson's performance of the song was accompanied only by Wurlitzer organ that earned her a prolonged ovation when she sent her voice soaring into the rafters. While touring at Beacon Theatre, New York City, Clarkson performed the song using only one keyboard, which was deemed by Donna Freydkin of "USA Today" as the most memorable moment of the event. She also performed the song using only a keyboard as an instrument during her tour at Massey Hall, Toronto. "Because of You" was also performed at the All I Ever Wanted Tour (2009). Clarkson's performance of the song during the tour in the Hammerstein Ballroom, New York City, was given a positive review by Jim Cantiello of MTV. He explained that Clarkson's powerful rendition "literally stopped the show [...] for almost 30 seconds because the audience erupted in such wild applause." Caryn Ganz of "Rolling Stone" noted that Clarkson sang the song to pay homage to Reba McEntire who was in the audience.


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: Lisa Tucker covered the song on the fifth season of "American Idol" in 2006. However, her performance was met with negative reviews from the judges and she was consequently eliminated from the show.


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: On June 4, 2011, "Britain's Got Talent" contestant, Ronan Parke covered "Because of You" in the finale of the fifth series of the show. Parke also recorded the song and included it in his debut album, "Ronan Parke". In an interview with Digital Spy, Parke stated that it was really challenging to record "Because of You." He added, "I asked the producer if we could leave out some of the big notes. We left them until the end and I was actually a bit scared by the noise that came out of me - I didn't know I could sound that loud!" "Because of You" was also covered by Kim Bo Kyung, who was a contestant in South Korean singing competition show, "Superstar K2." Her performance received positive response from the judges and was considered as one of the highlights in the show even though she failed to advance into the Top 11. Following her elimination, she recorded the studio version of "Because of You" which was released as a digital download by Sony Music Entertainment due to an overwhelming demand. She also received a personal video message from Clarkson who gave her words of advice and support. The song also was covered by Orange Caramel, a South Korean girl group, on Christmas Day for MBC's special programme, "ICON". Besides these cover versions, "Because of You" was also included in international soundtrack to Brazilian soap opera "Belíssima".


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: In 2007, Clarkson re-recorded "Because of You" as a duet with American country singer Reba McEntire. The song was released as a single on May 15, 2007, as the lead single for McEntire's album, "". The duet garnered mixed reviews from critics, some of whom felt that the cover brought nothing new to the song. At the 50th Grammy Awards, McEntire and Clarkson received a nomination for Best Vocal Country Collaboration for the song. In the United States, "Because of You" became McEntire's seventh song to peak at number two at Hot Country Songs. It also became Clarkson's second song to appear on the chart. The music video was directed by Roman White which depicts McEntire and Clarkson as two retro Hollywood lounge singers. The plot centers on Clarkson's relationship with her abusive partner which is witnessed by McEntire. The song was performed live by the two singers in various venues, notably at the 42nd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards and during their 2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour.


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: According to McEntire, Clarkson was the first singer to pair up with her for the album "" (2007). She also claimed that "Because of You" was not the original song to be included in the album; it was another song that she recorded with Clarkson, titled "A Lot Like You." McEntire explained that it was Narvel, her husband, who convinced her to go back in the studio and record "Because of You" after he heard both McEntire and Clarkson rehearsing the song. She expressed, "Narvel saw it. That wasn't one of the songs we had talked about recording – matter of fact, Kelly and I had already recorded a song, 'A Lot Like You,' for the duet project, and he said, 'You've got to do this one together,' so we did." Musically, the song is different from the original version. Thom Jhurek of Allmusic described the duet version as "a big, overblown power ballad" which incorporates "guitars compressed to the breaking point, sweeping strings, and enormous crashing cymbals." The use of violin was also incorporated into the duet, giving it a melodramatic quality that was deemed "unnecessary" by Nancy Dunham of Blogcritics. The song was officially sent to radio stations on May 15, 2007, as the lead single from the album. It was added to country radio playlists on May 28, 2007.


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: The song received mixed reviews from critics. Lana Cooper of PopMatters loved the duet and deemed it as "the most unique track on the album." She also felt that McEntire and Clarkson complemented each other in the song, writing "The double-feature cover of Clarkson's hit showcases two women with exceptional and distinctive voices playing to one another's strengths." The same opinion was echoed by Nancy Dunham of Blogcritics who believed that "the two use just the right amount of vocal passion to make the ardent lyrics come alive, but stay out of the cheese zone." Scott Sexton of About.com lauded the duet version of the song, writing "As of now anything Reba touches turns to gold, but with this hit alone she has a great shot at platinum." Kevin John Coyne of Country Universe praised McEntire's beautiful singing although he said that she did not bring "anything new" to the song. He also added that the song "had the potential to be reworked into an interesting mother/daughter confrontation" but he was disappointed because McEntire did not change the viewpoints of the song. He graded the production of the song as "C−", writing "The end result is the song doesn't make any sense, and is just confusing to listen to." Thom Jurek of Allmusic criticized the instrumentation of the song, saying "This could have been a Meat Loaf reject from ""." Gayle Thompson of The Boot ranked "Because of You" at number ten in her list of "Top 20 Reba McEntire songs." She also included both McEntire and Clarkson at number six for their duet of "Because of You" in her list of "Cross Country: Top 10 Country-Pop Duets." Gary Trust of "Billboard" listed the pair as one of the 10 all-female hit collaborations that have scaled "Billboard" charts in recent years. On March 5, 2013, "Billboard" ranked the song number 71 in its list of Top 100 American Idol Hits of All Time.


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: At the 42nd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards, McEntire and Clarkson received a nomination in the category of Musical Event of the Year for "Because of You," but lost to Tracy Lawrence with Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw for their collaboration in "Find Out Who Your Friends Are" (2006). At the 50th Grammy Awards, McEntire and Clarkson received a nomination in the category of Best Vocal Country Collaboration for the song, but lost to Willie Nelson and Ray Price. The pair also received a nomination for the Vocal Event of the Year at the 2008 Academy of Country Music, but lost to Tracy Lawrence with Kenny Chesney and Tim McGraw for their collaboration in "Find Out Who Your Friends Are". At the 2008 ASCAP Country Music Awards, the song was honoured with the Most Performed Songs award.


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: In the United States, "Because of You" debuted at number 42 on the Hot Country Songs on the week ending June 2, 2007. On the week ending September 8, 2007, the song jumped to its new peak at number two and was held off the top spot by Rodney Atkins' "These Are My People" (2007). It became McEntire's seventh song to peak at number two, and her first in over ten years.


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: Had the song jumped to number one, it would have been McEntire's 23rd number one song on the chart as well as the first remake of a pop song to top Hot Country Songs since Mark Chesnutt's cover of Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" spent two weeks at number one in 1999. "Because of You" also made an appearance on the "Billboard" Hot 100 at number 52, and peaked at number 50. This version has sold 621,000 copies in the US as of September 2017. In Canada, "Because of You" debuted at number 60 on the Canadian Hot 100 on the week ending July 14, 2007. Two weeks later, the song jumped to a new peak at number 36 and stayed in the position for two weeks. It was certified gold by Music Canada on December 4, 2007, for shipments over 40,000 units.


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: The music video, directed by Roman White, debuted on June 21, 2007. It depicts McEntire and Clarkson as 1930's Hollywood lounge singers. In the video, McEntire encounters Clarkson attempting to conceal a bruise inflicted by the latter's abusive partner. When Clarkson's boyfriend is fighting with her, McEntire leaves the dressing room. While performing on stage, Clarkson witnesses her boyfriend played by Andrew M. Springer flirting with another woman. After the performance, she smashes a vase out of anger in the dressing room. Her boyfriend enters the room to take her out for the rest of the evening. Though apprehensive, Clarkson leaves on his arm before looking back uncertainly at McEntire, who uncomfortably fiddles with a hairbrush as she watches them leave. The music video hit number one on CMT's Top 20 Countdown on September 13, 2007. At the 2008 CMT Music Awards, the music video received nominations for three awards. It received a nomination for the Video of the Year, but lost to Taylor Swift's "Our Song" (2007) and for the Collaborative Video of the Year, but lost to Bon Jovi featuring LeAnn Rimes, "Till We Ain't Strangers Anymore" (2007). Roman White, who directed the music video, received a nomination for the Video Director of the Year, but lost to Michael Salomon.


title: Because of You (Kelly Clarkson song)

text: McEntire and Clarkson first performed "Because of You" together at the 42nd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards in May 2007. A month later, the pair performed the song in an episode of CMT Crossroads at Ryman Auditorium which debuted on Country Music Television on June 24, 2007. On September 19, 2007, they appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" where they sang the song together. "Because of You" was also performed as the encore of the 2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour (2008), a co-headlining concert tour by McEntire and Clarkson.


title: Parker McKenna Posey

text: Parker McKenna Posey (born August 18, 1995) is an American actress. She is well known for her role as Kady Kyle on the television show, "My Wife and Kids".


title: Parker McKenna Posey

text: Posey rose to fame at a young age as she portrayed the role of Kady Kyle in the American sitcom, "My Wife and Kids". Posey also stars in an American drama television series, "Games People Play". She joined the cast of "A House Divided" in its second season as she played the role of "Summer."


title: Parker McKenna Posey

text: She has been present in a number of music videos including; Grammy-nominated "Beautiful Lies" by Yung Bleu and "Sweet Sweet Baby" by Macy Gray.


title: Parker McKenna Posey

text: In May 2021, Parker shared a video on her Instagram profile where she revealed that she has just given birth to a baby girl, Harley.


title: Free people of color

text: In the context of the history of slavery in the Americas, free people of color (French: "gens de couleur libres"; Spanish: "gente de color libre") were primarily people of mixed African, European, and Native American descent who were not enslaved. However, the term also applied to people born free who were primarily of black African descent with little mixture. They were a distinct group of free people of color in the French colonies, including Louisiana and in settlements on Caribbean islands, such as Saint-Domingue (Haiti), St. Lucia, Dominica, Guadeloupe, and Martinique. In these territories and major cities, particularly New Orleans, and those cities held by the Spanish, a substantial third class of primarily mixed-race, free people developed. These colonial societies classified mixed-race people in a variety of ways, generally related to visible features and to the proportion of African ancestry. Racial classifications were numerous in Latin America.


title: Free people of color

text: A freed African slave was known as "affranchi" (French: "freed"). The term was sometimes meant to include the free people of color, but they considered the term pejorative since they had been born free.


title: Free people of color

text: The term gens de couleur libres ( ("free people of color") was commonly used in France's West Indian colonies prior to the abolition of slavery. It frequently referred to free people of mixed African and European ancestry.


title: Free people of color

text: In British North America, the term free Negro was often used to cover the same class of people—those who were legally free and visibly of African descent.


title: Free people of color

text: By the late 18th century prior to the Haitian Revolution, Saint-Domingue was legally divided into three distinct groups: free whites (who were divided socially between the plantation-class "grands blancs" and the working-class "petits blancs"); freedmen ("affranchis"), and slaves. More than half of the "affranchis" were "gens de couleur libres"; others were considered freed black slaves. In addition, "maroons" (runaway slaves) were sometimes able to establish independent small communities and a kind of freedom in the mountains, along with remnants of Haiti's original Taino people. A large group of surviving Native Taino's also supported the Haitian Revolution, they were known as "indiens esclaves" which numbered about 5,000. In a 1780 census, there was also a group listed as “indiens sauvages”, which Haitian historians believe were the native Arawak and Taino that were known to live in tiny reclusive mountain communities at this point.


title: Free people of color

text: Dessalines talked about people whom he called “Rouges” (reds), or sometimes “Incas” in his letters. When they were spoken about in context of the war, he makes mention of cooperation between Africans and Natives in maroon communities that plotted against colonists on the southern peninsula. He’s also spoken about “Incas among his men” showing him secret burial quarters in the Artibonite valley that could be used by rebels as shelter and storage. There were 3,000 known Native peoples (both “esclaves” and “sauvages”) living in Haiti in the years before independence, according to a 1802 colonial census.


title: Free people of color

text: Dessalines did not forget these people and their sacrifices against Spain and now, France. He named the Haitian army “the Incas”, “the Army of the Sun” and eventually “the Indigenous Army” in honor of them. He also renamed the island “Haiti,” its pre-Columbian name.


title: Free people of color

text: When slavery was ended in the colony in 1793, by action of the French government following the French Revolution, there were approximately 28,000 "anciens libres" ("free before") in Saint-Domingue. The term was used to distinguish those who were already free, compared to those liberated by the general emancipation of 1793. About 16,000 of these "anciens libres" were "gens de couleur libres". Another 12,000 were "affranchis", black slaves who had either purchased their freedom or had been given it by their masters for various reasons.


title: Free people of color

text: Regardless of their ethnicity, in Saint-Domingue freedmen had been able to own land. Some acquired plantations and owned large numbers of slaves themselves. The slaves were generally not friendly with the freedmen, who sometimes portrayed themselves to whites as bulwarks against a slave uprising. As property owners, freedmen tended to support distinct lines set between their own class and that of slaves. Also often working as artisans, shopkeepers or landowners, the "gens de couleur" frequently became quite prosperous, and many prided themselves on their European culture and descent. They were often well-educated in the French language, and they tended to scorn the Haitian Creole language used by slaves. Most "gens de couleur" were reared as Roman Catholic, also part of French culture, and many denounced the Vodoun religion brought with slaves from Africa.


title: Free people of color

text: Under the "ancien régime", despite the provisions of equality nominally established in the "Code Noir", the "gens de couleur" were limited in their freedoms. They did not possess the same rights as Frenchmen, specifically the right to vote. Most supported slavery on the island, at least up to the time of the French Revolution. But they sought equal rights for free people of color, which became an early central issue of the unfolding Haitian Revolution.


title: Free people of color

text: The primary adversary of the "gens de couleur" before and into the Haitian Revolution were the working-class white people such as farmers and tradesmen of the colony, known as the "petits blancs" ("small whites"). Because of the freedmen's relative economic success in the region, sometimes related to blood ties to influential whites people, the "petits blancs" farmers often resented their social standing and worked to keep them shut out of government. Beyond financial incentives, the free coloreds caused the working-class whites further problems in finding women to start a family. The successful mulattos often won the hands of the small number of eligible women on the island. With growing resentment, the working-class whites monopolized assembly participation and caused the free people of color to look to France for legislative assistance.


title: Free people of color

text: The free people of color won a major political battle on May 15, 1791, when the Constituent Assembly in France voted to give full French citizenship to them, on the condition of having two free parents. The decree was revoked on September 24, 1791, and replaced by a new, more generous decree on April 4, 1792, that gave full French citizenship to all free people, regardless of the color of their skin and the statuses of their parents.


title: Free people of color

text: In their competition for power, both the poor whites and free coloreds enlisted the help of slaves. By doing this, the feud helped to disintegrate class discipline and propel the slave population in the colony to seek further inclusion and liberties in society. As the widespread slave rebellion in the north of the island wore on, many free people of color abandoned their earlier distance from the slaves. A growing coalition between the free coloreds and the former slaves was essential for the eventual success of the Haitians to expel French influence.


title: Free people of color

text: The former slaves and the "anciens libres" still remained segregated in many respects. Their animosity and struggle for power erupted in 1799. The competition between the "gens de couleur" led by André Rigaud and the black Haitians led by Toussaint Louverture devolved into the War of the Knives.


title: Free people of color

text: After their loss in that conflict, many wealthy "gens de couleur" left as refugees to France, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the United States and elsewhere. Some took slaves with them. Others, however, remained to play an influential role in Haitian politics.


title: Free people of color

text: Free people of color were an important part generally in the history of the Caribbean during the period of slavery and afterward. Initially descendants of French men and African and Indian slaves (and later French men and free women of color), and often marrying within their own mixed-race community, some achieved wealth and power. By the late eighteenth century, most free people of color in Saint-Domingue were native born and part of colored families that had been free for generations.


title: Free people of color

text: Free people of color were leaders in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which achieved independence in 1804 as the Republic of Haiti. In Saint-Domingue, Martinique, Guadeloupe, and other French Caribbean colonies before slavery was abolished, the free people of color were known as "gens de couleur libres", and "affranchis". Comparable mixed-race groups became an important part of the populations of the British colony of Jamaica, the Spanish colonies of Santo Domingo, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Portuguese colony of Brazil.


title: Free people of color

text: Free people of color played an important role in the history of New Orleans and the southern area of New France, both when the area was controlled by the French and Spanish, and after its acquisition by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase.


title: Free people of color

text: When French settlers and traders first arrived in these colonies, the men frequently took Native American women as their concubines or common-law wives (see Marriage 'à la façon du pays'). When African slaves were imported to the colony, many colonists took African women as concubines or wives. In the colonial period of French and Spanish rule, men tended to marry later after becoming financially established. Later, when more white families had settled or developed here, some young French men or ethnic French Creoles still took mixed-race women as mistresses, often known as "placées."


title: Free people of color

text: Popular stereotypes portray such unions as formal, financial transactions arranged between a white man and the mother of the mixed-race mistress. Supposedly, the young woman of mixed European and African ancestry would attend dances known as "quadroon balls" to meet white gentlemen willing to provide for her and any children she bears from their union. The relationship would end as soon as the man married properly. According to legend, free girls of color were raised by their mothers to become concubines for white men, as they themselves once were.


title: Free people of color

text: However, evidence suggests that on account of the community's piety by the late 18th century, free women of color usually preferred the legitimacy of marriage with other free men of color. In cases where free women of color did enter extramarital relationships with white men, such unions were overwhelmingly lifelong and exclusive. Many of these white men remained legal bachelors for life. This form of interracial cohabitation was often viewed as no different than the modern conception of a common-law marriage.


title: Free people of color

text: As in Saint-Domingue, the free people of color developed as a separate class between the colonial French and Spanish and the mass of black slaves. They often achieved education, practiced artisan trades, and gained some measure of wealth; they spoke French and practiced Catholicism. Many also developed a syncretic Christianity. At one time the center of their residential community in New Orleans was the French Quarter. Many were artisans who owned property and their own businesses. They formed a social category distinct from both whites and slaves, and maintained their own society into the period after United States annexation.


title: Free people of color

text: Some historians suggest that free people of color made New Orleans the cradle of the civil rights movement in the United States. They achieved more rights than did free people of color or free blacks in the Thirteen Colonies, including serving in the armed militia. After the United States acquired the Louisiana Territory, Creoles in New Orleans and the region worked to integrate the military "en masse". William C. C. Claiborne, appointed by Thomas Jefferson as governor of the Territory of Orleans, formally accepted delivery of the French colony on 20 December 1803.


title: Free people of color

text: Free men of color had been armed members of the militia for decades during both Spanish and French rule of the colony of Louisiana. They volunteered their services and pledged their loyalty to Claiborne and to their newly adopted country. In early 1804, the new U.S. administration in New Orleans under Governor Claiborne was faced with a dilemma previously unknown in the United States, the integration of the military by incorporating entire units of established "colored" militia. See, e.g., the 20 February 1804 letter from Secretary of War Henry Dearborn to Claiborne, stating that "it would be prudent not to increase the Corps, but to diminish, if it could be done without giving offense."


title: Free people of color

text: A decade later during the War of 1812, the militia which consisted of free men of color volunteered to join the force mustered by Andrew Jackson in preparation for the Battle of New Orleans, when the British began landing troops outside the city in December 1814 in preparation for an invasion of the city. The battle resulted in a decisive American victory, in which black soldiers played a crucial part. However, many black troops who had been promised freedom in exchange for service were forcibly returned to slavery after the battle's conclusion.


title: Free people of color

text: There was relatively little manumission of slaves until after the revolution. Throughout the slave societies of the Americas, some slave owners took advantage of the power relationships to use female slaves sexually; sometimes they had extended relationships of concubinage. However, in the Thirteen Colonies, the children of these relationships were not usually emancipated.


title: Free people of color

text: South Carolina diarist Mary Chesnut wrote in the mid-19th century that "like the patriarchs of old our men live all in one house with their wives and their concubines, and the mulattos one sees in every family exactly resemble the white children ..." In some places, especially in the French and Spanish Caribbean and South American slave societies, the ethnic European father might acknowledge the relationship and his children. Some were common-law marriages of affection. Slaveholders were more likely to free their mixed-race children of these relationships than they were to free other slaves. They also sometimes freed the enslaved women who were their concubines.


title: Free people of color

text: Many slave societies allowed masters to free their slaves. As the population of color became larger and the white ruling class felt more threatened by potential instability, they worked through their governments to increase restrictions on manumissions. These usually included taxes, requirements that some socially useful reason be cited for manumission, and a requirement that a newly freed person demonstrate a means of independent support. Masters might free their slaves for a variety of reasons, but the most common was a family relationship between master and slave.


title: Free people of color

text: Slaves sometimes gained a measure of freedom by purchasing themselves, when allowed to save some portion of earnings if leased out or selling produce. The master determined if one had to pay market or reduced value. In other cases, relatives who were already free and earning money purchased others. Sometimes masters, or the government, would free slaves without payment as a reward for some notable service; a slave who revealed slave conspiracies for uprisings was sometimes rewarded with freedom.


title: Free people of color

text: Many people who lived as free within the slave societies did not have formal liberty papers. In some cases these were refugees, who hid in the towns among free people of color and tried to maintain a low profile. In other cases they were "living as free" with the permission of their master, sometimes in return for payment of rent or a share of money they earned by trades. The master never made their freedom official, as in the case of Margaret Morgan, who had been living as a free person in Pennsylvania, but was captured in 1837 and sold together with her children under claims that they were still slaves according to the laws of Maryland.


title: Free people of color

text: Free people of color filled an important niche in the economy of slave societies. In most places they worked as artisans and small retail merchants in the towns. In many places, especially in the American South, there were restrictions on people of color owning slaves and agricultural land. But many free blacks lived in the countryside and some became major slaveholders. In the antebellum years, individual slaves who were freed often stayed on or near the plantations where they or their ancestors had been slaves, and where they had extended family. Masters often used free blacks as plantation managers or overseers, especially if the master had a family relationship with the mixed-race man.


title: Free people of color

text: In the early 19th century, societies required apprenticeships for free blacks to ensure they developed a means of support. For instance, in North Carolina, "By the late 1830s, then, county courts could apprentice orphans, fatherless or abandoned children, illegitimate children, and free black children whose parents were not employed.


title: Free people of color

text: However, the number of apprenticeships declined as the number of free blacks increased. In some Southern states after the Nat Turner slave rebellion of 1831, the legislatures passed laws that forbade the teaching of free blacks or slaves to read and write, which was a requirement for having an apprenticeship. There was fear if blacks could read and write, they might start slave revolts and rebellions. Blacks were not allowed to apprentice as an editor or work in a printing press. Despite the restrictions of some apprenticeships, many free blacks benefited from their time as an apprentice.


title: Free people of color

text: In Caribbean colonies, governments sometimes hired free people of color as rural police to hunt down runaway slaves and keep order among the slave population. From the view of the white master class in places such as Saint-Domingue or Jamaica, this was a critical function in a society in which the population of slaves on large plantations vastly outnumbered whites.


title: Free people of color

text: In places where law or social custom permitted it, some free people of color managed to acquire good agricultural land and slaves, and become planters themselves. Free blacks owned plantations in almost all the slave societies of the Americas. In the United States, free people of color may have owned the most property in Louisiana, as the French and Spanish colony had developed a distinct creole or mixed-race class before its acquisition by the United States. A man who had a relationship with a woman of color often also arranged for a transfer of wealth to her and their children, whether through deed of land and property to the mother and/or children under the system of "plaçage", or by arranging for an apprenticeship to a trade for their mixed-race children, which provided them a better opportunity to make a skilled living, or by educating sons in France and easing their way into the military. In St. Domingue by the late colonial period, "gens de couleur" owned about one-third of the land and about one-quarter of the slaves, mostly in the southern part of the island.


title: Free people of color

text: When the end of slavery came, the distinction between former free coloreds and former slaves persisted in some societies. Because of advantages in the social capital of education and experience, free people of color often became leaders for the newly freed people. In Saint-Domingue, Toussaint Louverture had gained freedom before he became a leader in the slave rebellion, but he is not believed to have been of mixed race.


title: Free people of color

text: In the United States, many of the African Americans elected as state and local officials during Reconstruction in the South had been free in the South before the Civil War. Other new leaders were educated men of color from the North whose families had long been free and who went to the South to work and help the freedmen. Some were elected to office.


title: Free people of color

text: Many descendants of the "gens de couleur", or free people of color, of the Louisiana area celebrate their culture and heritage through a New Orleans-based Louisiana Creole Research Association (LA Créole). The term "Créole" is not synonymous with "free people of color" or "gens de couleur libre", but many members of LA Créole have traced their genealogies through those lines. Today, the multiracial descendants of the French and Spanish colonists, Africans, and other ethnicities are widely known as Louisiana Creoles. Louisiana's Governor Bobby Jindal signed Act 276 on 14 June 2013, creating the "prestige" license plate, "I'm Creole," honoring Louisiana Creoles' contributions and heritage.


title: Free people of color

text: The terms "Créole" and "Cajun" have sometimes been confused in Louisiana, as members of each group generally had ancestors who were French-speaking; but the terms are not synonymous. The Cajuns are descendants of French colonists from Acadia (in eastern Canada) who were resettled to Louisiana in the 18th century, generally outside the New Orleans area. Generations later, some of their culture relates to that of the Louisiana Creoles, but they are distinct. Members of each group may be multi-ethnic.


title: Reg Varney

text: Reginald Alfred Varney (11 July 1916 – 16 November 2008) was an English actor, entertainer and comedian. He is best remembered for having played the lead role of bus driver Stan Butler in the LWT sitcom "On the Buses" (1969–73) and its three spin-off feature films. Having performed as a music hall entertainer, Varney first came to national recognition as factory foreman Reg Turner in the BBC sitcom "The Rag Trade" (1961–63). He appeared in further sitcoms including "Beggar My Neighbour" (1966–1968) and "On the Buses" stardom facililated overseas cabaret tours.


title: Reg Varney

text: Varney was born in Canning Town, Essex (but now part of London), to Sidney Thomas Varney and his wife Annie (née Needham). His father worked in a rubber factory in Silvertown and he was one of five children who grew up in Addington Road, Canning Town. He was educated at the nearby Star Lane Primary School in West Ham and after leaving school at 14, he worked as a messenger boy and a page boy at the Regent Palace Hotel.


title: Reg Varney

text: Varney took piano lessons as a child and was good enough to find employment as a part-time piano player. His first paid engagement was at Plumstead Radical Club in Woolwich, for which he was paid eight shillings and sixpence (42½p). He also played in working men's clubs, pubs and ABC cinemas, and later sang with big bands of the time. He and his mother decided that show business was the career for him, and he gave up his day jobs. Varney became a solo pianist at the Windmill Theatre in May 1938. In late 1939, he married Lilian E. Flavell (1915-2002) at East Ham.


title: Reg Varney

text: During the Second World War, Varney joined the Royal Engineers, but continued his performing career as an army entertainer, touring in the Far East for a time. After being demobilised in the late 1940s, he starred on stage in a comic revue entitled "Gaytime", with Benny Hill as his partner in a double act. He then became an all-round entertainer, working his way around the music halls.


title: Reg Varney

text: Varney had made only a small number of film and TV appearances prior to being cast in the role of long-suffering factory foreman Reg Turner in the BBC television sitcom "The Rag Trade" (1961–63), which made him a household name. He was aware that he was the only performer without West End acting experience and worked hard to make up for it. Slightly later, he starred in a show for BBC TV called "The Valiant Varneys" (1964–65), performing multiple characters in front of a live audience. After that followed another comedy role in "Beggar My Neighbour" (1966–68); this also starred Pat Coombs, June Whitfield, and Peter Jones. Pat Coombs played the wife of Varney's character. Varney featured in "The Great St Trinian's Train Robbery" (1966) with Frankie Howerd, Dora Bryan and George Cole.


title: Reg Varney

text: The world's first voucher-based cash dispensing machine was installed at the Enfield Town branch of Barclays Bank. Varney was living in Enfield at the time and for publicity purposes he was photographed making the first withdrawal from the machine on Tuesday 27 June 1967.


title: Reg Varney

text: Varney's most successful lead role was in the LWT sitcom "On the Buses" (1969–73) as bus driver Stan Butler. Varney took considerable lengths to prepare for the role, even attempting to gain a public service vehicle licence so that he could be filmed driving on the open road. However, Varney was not insured so LWT had to employ professional drivers for these scenes. Three spin-off films were made — "On the Buses" (1971), "Mutiny on the Buses" (1972) and "Holiday on the Buses" (1973). Varney was 52 when the first series was recorded, although his character Stan, who lived with his mother and often tried to attract young women, was implied to be aged around 35. Varney was only eleven years younger than Doris Hare, the main actress who played Stan's mother, and some twenty-one years older than Anna Karen who played his sister.


title: Reg Varney

text: Varney left the series midway through its last season, hoping to move on to films and other projects. Ultimately, he only appeared in one further non-"Buses" film, "The Best Pair of Legs in the Business" (1973), and two television series, both made by ATV for the ITV network: an eponymously titled sketch show (1973–74) and another sitcom, "Down the 'Gate" (1975–76), which was set in Billingsgate Fish Market. However neither series replicated his success with "On the Buses", and after "Down the Gate" was dropped after twelve episodes, Varney did not star in another television series. LWT revived "The Rag Trade" in 1977 but Varney did not reprise his role.


title: Reg Varney

text: He later worked as an entertainer on cruise ships and toured Australia with his one-man show. He told an interviewer, "Whatever I did after "On the Buses", nobody wanted to know about it. But I can't knock the programme because it brought me offers to do concert tours in Australia, New Zealand and Canada."


title: Reg Varney

text: At the height of his fame he was a subject of the television programme "This Is Your Life" on 20 May 1970 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews, making further appearances in programmes featuring Doris Hare, Douglas Bader, June Whitfield and Anthony Newley.


title: Reg Varney

text: Varney released several LP albums during his career - "This Is Reg Varney On The 88s at Abbey Road" on Columbia in 1972; "Reg's Party - Reg Varney Plays And Sings" on EMI-One-Up label in 1973; and "A Variety of Varney" on Astor in 1976.


title: Reg Varney

text: Varney had a heart attack in 1965, and in 1981 he suffered a more serious one. He then contracted a severe viral infection, which for three years made working difficult for him. In 1989, he suffered a stroke, which left him with an uneven heartbeat. Subsequently, he divided his time between his home in a small village near Dartmouth and a villa in Malta.


title: Reg Varney

text: Varney moved to Devon in the late 1980s and lived alone after his wife, Lilian Emma Varney died in East Devon in 2002, aged 87.


title: Reg Varney

text: In his retirement years, Varney painted local landscapes in oil, with many to professional standard; some of his works were exhibited in London.


title: Reg Varney

text: Varney died aged 92 in a nursing home in Budleigh Salterton, Devon, on 16 November 2008, following a chest infection.


title: Reg Varney

text: In 2016, 100 years after Varney was born, an exhibition called "Before the Buses" was commissioned by his only child, his daughter Jeanne.


title: General ledger

text: In bookkeeping, a general ledger is a bookkeeping ledger in which accounting data are posted from journals and aggregated from subledgers, such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, cash management, fixed assets, purchasing and projects. A ledger account is created for each account in the chart of accounts for an organization and is classified into account categories, such as income, expense, assets, liabilities, and equity; the collection of all these accounts is known as the general ledger. The general ledger holds financial and non-financial data for an organization. Each account in the general ledger consists of one or more pages. An organization's statement of financial position and the income statement are both derived from income and expense account categories in the general ledger.


title: General ledger

text: The general ledger contains a page for all accounts in the chart of accounts arranged by account categories. The general ledger is usually divided into at least seven main categories: assets, liabilities, owner's equity, revenue, expenses, gains and losses. The main categories of the general ledger may be further subdivided into subledgers to include additional details of such accounts as cash, accounts receivable, accounts payable, etc.


title: General ledger

text: The extraction of account balances is called a trial balance. The purpose of the trial balance is, at a preliminary stage of the financial statement preparation process, to ensure the equality of the total debits and credits.


title: General ledger

text: Posting is the process of recording amounts as credits (right side), and amounts as debits (left side), in the pages of the general ledger. Additional columns to the right hold a running activity total (similar to a chequebook).


title: General ledger

text: The general ledger should include the date, description and balance or total amount for each account.


title: General ledger

text: Because each bookkeeping entry debits one account and credits another account in an equal amount, the double-entry bookkeeping system helps ensure that the general ledger is always in balance, thus maintaining the accounting equation:


title: General ledger

text: The accounting equation is the mathematical structure of the balance sheet. Although a general ledger appears to be fairly simple, in large or complex organizations or organizations with various subsidiaries, the general ledger can grow to be quite large and take several hours or days to audit or balance.


title: General ledger

text: In a manual or non-computerized system, the general ledger may be a large book. Organizations may instead employ one or more spreadsheets for their ledgers, including the general ledger, or may utilize specialized software to automate ledger entry and handling. When a business uses enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, a financial-features module produces subledgers and the general ledger, with entries drawn from a database that is shared with other processes managed through the ERP.


title: B. L. Santhosh

text: Bommarabettu Laxmijanardhana Santhosh is an Indian politician currently National General Secretary of Bharatiya Janata Party from 15 July 2019.


title: B. L. Santhosh

text: Santhosh worked as BJP's General Secretary (Organisation) for eight years in the Karnataka state unit and was appointed national joint general secretary in-charge of southern states in 2014 by Amit Shah.


title: B. L. Santhosh

text: Santhosh hails from Udupi in Karnataka. He studied Instrumentation Technology in BDT College of Engineering in Davanagere, Karnataka.


title: B. L. Santhosh

text: Santosh started as a RSS Pracharak (full-time worker) in 1993. He had stints in Mysuru, Shivamogga and later in Bangalore. He returned to Shivamogga in the early 2000s. In 2006 he moved to BJP as the General Secretary (Organization) for Karnataka. He remained in the post till 2014. This also saw the BJP in power between 2008 and 2013.


title: B. L. Santhosh

text: In 2014, Santosh was made the Joint General Secretary (Organization) of BJP. In 2019 he was elevated to the post General Secretary (Organization) of BJP. He is someone who is attributed to have spotted and groomed youth leaders such as Pratap Simha and Tejasvi Surya in Karnataka.


title: B. L. Santhosh

text: Detractors say Santosh wields a lot of control in Karnataka BJP and within the BJP high command at the center. People quote the fact that 2 unknown faces, Ashok Gasti and Eranna Kadadi, were made members of Rajya Sabha by the BJP in June 2020 much against the wishes of the Chief Minister.


title: B. L. Santhosh

text: Santosh in January 2020 reported that Valmikis, Bhovis, Waddars, and other Dalit societies are migrants, not native communities. J N Ganesh criticized him and said his assertion was incorrect. The Federation of Progressive Organizations organized a protest, demanding that he be charged under the SC/ST Act.


title: Axle

text: An axle or axletree is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to the vehicle, with the wheels rotating around the axle. In the former case, bearings or bushings are provided at the mounting points where the axle is supported. In the latter case, a bearing or bushing sits inside a central hole in the wheel to allow the wheel or gear to rotate around the axle. Sometimes, especially on bicycles, the latter type of axle is referred to as a "spindle".


title: Axle

text: On cars and trucks, several senses of the word "axle" occur in casual usage, referring to the shaft itself, its housing, or simply any transverse pair of wheels. Strictly speaking, a shaft that rotates with the wheel, being either bolted or splined in fixed relation to it, is called an "axle" or "axle shaft". However, in looser usage, an entire assembly including the surrounding axle housing (typically a casting) is also called an "axle".


title: Axle

text: An even broader (somewhat figurative) sense of the word refers to every pair of parallel wheels on opposite sides of a vehicle, regardless of their mechanical connection to each other and to the vehicle frame or body. Thus, transverse pairs of wheels in an independent suspension may be called an "axle" in some contexts. This very loose definition of "axle" is often used in assessing toll roads or vehicle taxes, and is taken as a rough proxy for the overall weight-bearing capacity of a vehicle, and its potential for causing wear or damage to roadway surfaces.


title: Axle

text: Axles are an integral component of most practical wheeled vehicles. In a live-axle suspension system, the axles serve to transmit driving torque to the wheel, as well as to maintain the position of the wheels relative to each other and to the vehicle body. The axles in this system must also bear the weight of the vehicle plus any cargo. A non-driving axle, such as the front beam axle in heavy-duty trucks and some two-wheel drive light trucks and vans, will have no shaft, and serves only as a suspension and steering component. Conversely, many front-wheel drive cars have a solid rear beam axle.


title: Axle

text: In other types of suspension systems, the axles serve only to transmit driving torque to the wheels; the position and angle of the wheel hubs is an independent function of the suspension system. This is typical of the independent suspensions found on most newer cars and SUVs, and on the front of many light trucks. These systems still have differentials, but will not have attached axle housing tubes. They may be attached to the vehicle frame or body, or integral in a transaxle. The axle shafts (usually constant-velocity type) then transmit driving torque to the wheels. Like a full floating axle system, the drive shafts in a front-wheel drive independent suspension system do not support any vehicle weight.


title: Axle

text: A straight axle is a single rigid shaft connecting a wheel on the left side of the vehicle to a wheel on the right side. The axis of rotation fixed by the axle is common to both wheels. Such a design can keep the wheel positions steady under heavy stress, and can therefore support heavy loads. Straight axles are used on trains (that is, locomotives and railway wagons), for the rear axles of commercial trucks, and on heavy-duty off-road vehicles. The axle can optionally be protected and further reinforced by enclosing the length of the axle in a housing.


title: Axle

text: In split-axle designs, the wheel on each side is attached to a separate shaft. Modern passenger cars have split-drive axles. In some designs, this allows independent suspension of the left and right wheels, and therefore a smoother ride. Even when the suspension is not independent, split axles permit the use of a differential, allowing the left and right drive wheels to be driven at different speeds as the automobile turns, improving traction and extending tire life.


title: Axle

text: A tandem axle is a group of two or more axles situated close together. Truck designs use such a configuration to provide a greater weight capacity than a single axle. Semi-trailers usually have a tandem axle at the rear.


title: Axle

text: Axles are typically made from SAE grade 41xx steel or SAE grade 10xx steel. SAE grade 41xx steel is commonly known as "chrome-molybdenum steel" (or "chrome-moly") while SAE grade 10xx steel is known as "carbon steel". The primary differences between the two are that chrome-moly steel is significantly more resistant to bending or breaking, and is very difficult to weld with tools normally found outside a professional welding shop.


title: Axle

text: Modern front-wheel drive cars typically combine the transmission (gearbox and differential) and front axle into a single unit called a "transaxle". The drive axle is a split axle with a differential and universal joints between the two half axles. Each half axle connects to the wheel by use of a constant velocity (CV) joint which allows the wheel assembly to move freely vertically as well as to pivot when making turns.


title: Axle

text: In rear-wheel drive cars and trucks, the engine turns a driveshaft (also called a "propellor shaft" or "tailshaft") which transmits the rotational force to a drive axle at the rear of the vehicle. The drive axle may be a live axle, but modern rear-wheel drive automobiles generally use a split axle with a differential. In this case, one half-axle or half-shaft connects the differential with the left rear wheel, a second half-shaft does the same with the right rear wheel; thus the two half-axles and the differential constitute the rear axle. The front drive axle is providing the force to drive the truck. In fact, only one wheel of that axle is actually moving the truck and trailer down the road.


title: Axle

text: Some simple vehicle designs, such as leisure go-karts, may have a single driven wheel where the drive axle is a split axle with only one of the two shafts driven by the engine, or else have both wheels connected to one shaft without a differential (kart racing). However, other go-karts have two rear drive wheels too.


title: Axle

text: Some dump trucks and trailers may be configured with a lift axle (also known as an "airlift axle" or "drop axle"), which may be mechanically raised or lowered. The axle is lowered to increase the weight capacity, or to distribute the weight of the cargo over more wheels, for example, to cross a weight-restricted bridge. When not needed, the axle is lifted off the ground to save wear on the tires and axle, and to increase traction in the remaining wheels. Lifting an axle also alleviates lateral scrubbing of the additional axle in very tight turns, allowing the vehicle to turn more readily. In some situations, the removal of pressure from the additional axle is necessary for the vehicle to complete a turn at all.


title: Axle

text: Several manufacturers offer computer-controlled airlifts so that the dead axles are automatically lowered when the main axle reaches its weight limit. The dead axles can still be lifted by the press of a button if needed, for better maneuverability.


title: Axle

text: Lift axles were in use in the early 1940s. Initially, the axle was lifted by a mechanical device. Soon hydraulics replaced the mechanical lift system. One of the early manufacturers was Zetterbergs, located in Östervåla, Sweden. Their brand was Zeta-lyften.


title: Axle

text: The liftable tandem drive axle was invented in 1957 by the Finnish truck manufacturer Vanajan Autotehdas, a company sharing history with Sisu Auto.


title: Axle

text: A full-floating axle carries the vehicle's weight on the axle casing, not the half-shafts; they serve only to transmit torque from the differential to the wheels. They "float" inside an assembly that carries the vehicle's weight. Thus the only stress it must endure is torque (not lateral bending force). Full-floating axle shafts are retained by a flange bolted to the hub, while the hub and bearings are retained on the spindle by a large nut. In contrast, a semi-floating design carries the weight of the vehicle on the axle shaft itself; there is a single bearing at the end of the axle housing that carries the load from the axle and that the axle rotates through. To be "semi-floating" the axle shafts must be able to "float" in the housing, bearings and seals, and not subject to axial "thrust" and/or bearing preload. Needle bearings and separate lip seals are used in semi-floating axles with axle retained in the housing at their inner ends typically with "c-clips" which are 3/4-round hardened washers that slide into grooves machined at the inner end of the shafts and retained in/by recesses in the differential carrier side gears which are themselves retained by the differential pinion gear or "spider gear" shaft. A true semi-floating axle assembly places no side loads on the axle housing tubes or axle shafts.


title: Axle

text: Axles that are pressed into ball or tapered roller bearings which are in turn retained in/on the axle housings with flanges, bolts, and nuts do not "float" and place axial loads on the bearings, housings, and only a short section of the shaft itself that also carries all radial loads.


title: Axle

text: The full-floating design is typically used in most 3/4- and 1-ton light trucks, medium-duty trucks, and heavy-duty trucks. The overall assembly can carry more weight than a semi-floating or non-floating axle assembly because the hubs have two bearings riding on a fixed spindle. A full-floating axle can be identified by a protruding hub to which the axle shaft flange is bolted.


title: Axle

text: The semi-floating axle setup is commonly used on half-ton and lighter 4x4 trucks in the rear. This setup allows the axle shaft to be the means of propulsion, and also support the weight of the vehicle. The main difference between the full- and semi-floating axle setups is the number of bearings. The semi-floating axle features only one bearing, while the full-floating assembly has bearings on both the inside and outside of the wheel hub. The other difference is axle removal. To remove the semi-floating axle, the wheel must be removed first; if such an axle breaks, the wheel is most likely to come off the vehicle. The semi-floating design is found under most 1/2-ton and lighter trucks, as well as in SUVs and rear-wheel-drive passenger cars, usually being smaller or less expensive models.


title: Axle

text: A benefit of a full-floating axle is that even if an axle shaft (used to transmit torque or power) breaks, the wheel will not come off, preventing serious accidents.


title: Robert Bathurst

text: Robert Guy Bathurst (born 22 February 1957) is an English actor. Bathurst was born in The Gold Coast (now Ghana) in 1957, where his father was working as a management consultant. In 1959 his family moved to Ballybrack, Dublin, Ireland and Bathurst attended school in Killiney and later was enrolled at Headfort, an Irish boarding school. In 1966, the family moved back to England and Bathurst transferred to Worth School in Sussex, where he took up amateur dramatics. At the age of 18, he read law at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and joined the Footlights group.


title: Robert Bathurst

text: After graduating, he took up acting full-time and made his professional stage debut in 1983, playing Tim Allgood in Michael Frayn's "Noises Off", which ran for a year at the Savoy Theatre. To broaden his knowledge of working on stage, he joined the National Theatre. He supplemented his stage roles in the 1980s with television roles, appearing in comedies such as the aborted pilot episode of "Blackadder", "Chelmsford 123", "The Lenny Henry Show" and the first episode of "Red Dwarf". In 1991, he won his first major television role playing Mark Taylor in the semi-autobiographical BBC sitcom "Joking Apart", written by Steven Moffat. Although only thirteen episodes were made (between 1991 and 1995), the role remains Bathurst's favourite of his whole career. After "Joking Apart" concluded, he was cast as pompous management consultant David Marsden in the ITV comedy drama "Cold Feet", which ran for five series from 1998 to 2003 and again for four further series from 2016 to 2020.


title: Robert Bathurst

text: Since 2003, Bathurst has played a fictional prime minister in the BBC sitcom "My Dad's the Prime Minister", Mark Thatcher in the fact-based drama "Coup!" and a man whose daughter goes missing in the ITV thriller "The Stepfather". He also made a return to theatre roles, playing Vershinin in "The Three Sisters" (2003), Adrien in the two-hander "Members Only" (2006), government whip Alistair in "Whipping it Up" (2006–07), and the title role in "Alex" (2007, 2008). In the following years, he starred in the television dramas "The Pillars of the Earth" (2010), "Downton Abbey" (2010), "Hattie" (2011) and joined the cast of "Wild at Heart" in 2012. Bathurst appeared in his first Noël Coward play, "Present Laughter" in 2010 and followed it with a role in "Blithe Spirit" that same year and again in 2011. He is married and has four children.


title: Robert Bathurst

text: Robert Guy Bathurst was born in Accra, Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana), on 22 February 1957 to Philip Charles Metcalfe Bathurst, a descendant of politician Charles Bathurst and kinsman of the Earls Bathurst and Viscounts Bledisloe, and his wife Gillian ("née" Debenham). His father was a major in the Royal Engineers during the Second World War and was working in West Africa as a management consultant. His mother was a physiotherapist. They had two other children, Nicholas and Charlotte. The family lived in Ghana until 1959, when they moved to Ballybrack, Dublin, Ireland. Bathurst and his brother attended two schools in Dublin – the Holy Child School in Killiney and a school in Ballsbridge – before being sent to Headfort, a preparatory school in Kells, County Meath. He compared the time he and his brother, who were Catholics, spent at the Anglican boarding school to "Lord of the Flies"; "we were incarcerated in a huge, stinking, Georgian house, where we were treated very brutally".


title: Robert Bathurst

text: In 1966, the family moved to England and Bathurst was sent to board at Worth School in Sussex. At the age of 13, he began acting in minor skits and revues and read old copies of "Plays and Players" magazine, "studying floor plans of theatres and reading about new theatres being built". He had first become interested in acting when his family saw a pantomime at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin and he watched actors waiting for their cues in the wings.


title: Robert Bathurst

text: Bathurst left Worth at the age of 18 to read law at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He spent much of his time there performing in the Cambridge Footlights alongside Hugh Laurie, Rory McGrath and Emma Thompson. From 1977 to 1978, he was the secretary of the group and, from 1978 to 1979, he was the president. Among the Footlights Revues in which he participated were "Stage Fright" in 1978, which he also co-wrote and "Nightcap" in 1979. He also directed and appeared in the Footlights pantomime "Aladdin" as Widow Twankey during the 1978–79 season. He took the Bar Vocational Course at the University of Law, in London, which allowed him to go on to become a practising barrister, but stuck to acting instead.


title: Robert Bathurst

text: After leaving Cambridge, Bathurst spent a year touring Australia in the Footlights Revue "Botham, The Musical", which he described as "a bunch of callow youths flying round doing press conferences and chat shows". Although he enjoyed his work with Footlights, he did not continue performing with the group, worrying that he would be "washed up at 35 having coat-tailed on their success through the early part of [his] career". After leaving, he found that he was considered a dilettante, which resulted in it taking him longer than expected to be accepted as a serious actor. His first professional role out of university was in the BBC Radio 4 series "Injury Time", alongside fellow Footlights performers Rory McGrath and Emma Thompson. His first role for television came in 1982, when he appeared as Prince Henry in the unaired pilot episode of "Blackadder". He had already appeared in a training video by director Geoff Posner and got the role of Henry by way of thanks. The character was recast and downgraded when the series was commissioned as "The Black Adder".


title: Robert Bathurst

text: Bathurst's professional stage debut came the next year when he joined the second cast of Michael Frayn's "Noises Off" at the Savoy Theatre. He replaced Roger Lloyd-Pack as Tim Allgood and stayed at the Savoy for a year. Between roles, he worked as a television presenter for BBC East. After declining an offer to be a presenter of "That's Life!" he joined the National Theatre in 1984, where he appeared as a background actor in "Saint Joan". He regards it as "the most demoralising" job he has ever had but was grateful for the theatre experience it gave him. The following year, he appeared at The Man in the Moon, a pub theatre in Chelsea, in "Judgement", a two-hour monologue on cannibalism. The opening night audience was made up of three people but after good reviews in the national press the audience grew to an average of fifteen.


title: Robert Bathurst

text: A casting director for the James Bond film "The Living Daylights" persuaded Bathurst to audition for Bond. Bathurst believes that his "ludicrous audition" was only "an arm-twisting exercise" because the producers wanted to pressure Timothy Dalton to take the role by telling him they were still auditioning other actors. Bathurst noted "I could never have done it – Bond actors are always very different from me".


title: Robert Bathurst

text: He continued to make minor appearances in television throughout the 1980s; in 1987, he auditioned for the role of Dave Lister in the BBC North science fiction sitcom "Red Dwarf". The part eventually went to Craig Charles but Bathurst was given a role in the first episode of the first series as Frank Todhunter, second officer on the ship, who is killed in the first ten minutes. Ten years later, Bathurst was invited to reprise the role when a storyline in the series allowed former characters to return, but filming commitments prevented him from appearing. In 1989, he appeared in Malcolm Bradbury's "Anything More Would Be Greedy" for Anglia Television, playing Dennis Medlam, MP. The programme was broadcast in 1990 to little fanfare. In 1990, he performed on "Up Yer News", a live topical programme broadcast on BSB.


title: Robert Bathurst

text: While working on "Up Yer News", Bathurst auditioned for a one-off television comedy called "Joking Apart". Earlier in the day, he noticed a fellow "Up Yer News" performer reading the script to prepare for his own audition. As Bathurst went into the audition room, his colleague was leaving and told Bathurst he would "break his legs" if he got the part, a threat that seemed not to be "entirely jocular". Bathurst got the part and the pilot of "Joking Apart" was broadcast as an installment of the BBC 2 "Comic Asides" strand. It returned for two series in 1993 and 1995. Bathurst appeared as sitcom writer Mark Taylor in the series. After the first series was broadcast, a critic called Bathurst the "Best Comedy Newcomer of 1993".


title: Robert Bathurst

text: The show was punctuated by fantasy sequences in which his character performed his thoughts as a stand-up routine in a small club. In the commentary and the interview on the DVD, Bathurst says that he was told that they would be re-shot after filming everything else, an idea abandoned because of the expense. He has an idea of re-filming the sequences 'now', as his older self, to give them a more retrospective feeling. He has also said that he believes Mark was too "designery" and wishes that he had "roughened him up a bit". The role is his favourite of his whole career; he has described it as "the most enjoyable job I will ever do" and considers several episodes of the series to be "timeless, beautifully constructed farces which will endure". Bathurst is often recognised for his appearance in this series, mentioning that "Drunks stop me on public transport and tell me details of the plot of their favourite episode". As punishment for arriving late for the series one press launch at the Café Royal in Regent Street, London, writer Steven Moffat pledged to write an episode in which Mark is naked throughout. To a large extent, this vow is realised in the second series.


title: Robert Bathurst

text: Between 1991 and 1995, Bathurst also appeared on television in "No Job for a Lady", "The House of Eliott" and "The Detectives" and on stage in "The Choice", George Bernard Shaw's "Getting Married" at Chichester with Dorothy Tutin and Gogol's "The Nose" adapted by Alastair Beaton, which played in Nottingham and Bucharest. He also filmed a role in "The Wind in the Willows" (Terry Jones, 1996) as St John Weasel.


title: Robert Bathurst

text: In 1996, while appearing in "The Rover" at the Salisbury Playhouse, Bathurst got an audition for the Granada Television comedy pilot "Cold Feet". He arrived for the audition "bearded and shaggy", on account of his role in the play, and did not expect to win the role of upper-middle class management consultant David Marsden. The role in the pilot was only minor and created at the last minute to support characters played by James Nesbitt and Helen Baxendale; the only character note in the script about David related to his high salary. Bathurst identified the character as merely a "post-Thatcherite whipping boy".


title: Robert Bathurst

text: Bathurst reprised the role in the "Cold Feet" series, which ran for five years from 1998 to 2003. He described the character of David as an "emotional cripple", originally with little depth. The third series features an affair between David and a political activist played by Yasmin Bannerman. Bathurst appreciated the opportunity to bring some depth to a previously one-dimensional character, but was more impressed with the storylines that came out of the affair, rather than the affair itself: "It was the deception, the guilt and the recrimination rather than the actual affair, which was neither interesting nor remarkable". Like other cast members, Bathurst was able to suggest storylines as the series went on; one episode features David celebrating his fortieth birthday and Bathurst suggested the character could get a Harley-Davidson motorbike. Granada paid for him to take motorcycle lessons and a test. On the day before taking his test, the filming of a scene where David takes off on his new bike was scheduled. Bathurst "wobbled, missed the camera and crashed into the pavement", leading director Simon Delaney to exclaim it was the funniest thing he had ever seen. In another episode, David buys a racehorse – ostensibly as a birthday present for his wife – in a plot born out of Bathurst's own love of horseracing. The role made him more widely recognisable and he often received prospective scripts that were "obvious rewrites of the character". He turned them down, preferring to play a "good person", which would be more interesting from a dramatic point of view.


title: Robert Bathurst

text: Between 1998 and 2003, he made television appearances in "Goodbye, Mr Steadman" (2001), starring opposite Caroline Quentin as a shy and unassuming teacher who has been declared dead after one of his pupils erases all computer records relating to him and in the adaptation of "White Teeth" (2002). On stage, in 1998 he appeared in Michael Frayn's "Alarms and Excursions" and in 1999 in "Hedda Gabler", which was his last theatre role for several years. In the "Daily Telegraph", Charles Spencer described his role as Tesman as a "weird casting choice" but called his acting "a brave stab". In 2001, Bathurst appeared in the music video for Westlife's Comic Relief single "Uptown Girl".


title: Robert Bathurst

text: In 2002, straight after finishing "Cold Feet", Bathurst went straight into filming "My Dad's the Prime Minister", a series in which he portrays fictional British prime minister Michael Philips. The first series was broadcast in a Sunday afternoon CBBC slot in 2003. He watched debates in the House of Commons to prepare for the role but did not base his portrayal on Tony Blair. In 2003, he returned to theatre for the first time in four years to play Vershinin in "The Three Sisters", opposite Kristin Scott Thomas and Eric Sykes. He had not seen "The Three Sisters" before starring in it. Director Michael Blakemore advised him to turn this to his advantage, as he would not feel he had to live up to previous portrayals. After its run concluded, a special edition of "The Three Sisters" was filmed with the same cast for television broadcast on BBC Four. In 2005, the second series of "My Dad's the Prime Minister" was broadcast, now moved to a Friday night time slot to take advantage of the adult humour. The same year, he starred in the ITV thriller "The Stepfather" playing Christopher Veazey, a man whose daughter goes missing. Bathurst was pleased that this white-collar worker had an emotional side, in comparison to David Marsden, whom he used as a yardstick when accepting those sorts of roles. Also in 2005, he played Mr Sesseman in an adaptation of "Heidi" and Dottore Massimo in "The Thief Lord".


title: Robert Bathurst

text: In 2006, he played Mark Thatcher in "Coup!", a dramatisation of the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea. He also starred as Adrien opposite Nicholas Tennant in the UK premiere of "Members Only" at the Trafalgar Studios. He accepted the part because it was "funny, plausible, plausibly absurd and cruel" and he liked that it was a translation from an original French play. He enjoyed working on it, telling "What's on Stage": "Nick is a really good actor and really good to work with in that you can have completely frank discussions about tiny issues and it's totally ego-free. We're all just discussing the point and not playing games with each other. It does make the working practice easier. If there's only two of you in a play, you are equally responsible – there's nobody else to blame if it goes wrong. So its a greater risk and there's no hiding". At the end of the year, he appeared opposite Richard Wilson in "Whipping it Up", a play about whips in a fictional David Cameron government. To research his role, he watched more Commons debates. In 2006, Bathurst also appeared in an episode of "Agatha Christie's Poirot" 2005 where he played Gilbert Entwhistle in "After the Funeral".


title: Robert Bathurst

text: After a season at the Bush Theatre at the end of 2006, "Whipping it Up" transferred to the New Ambassadors Theatre from March to June 2007. The tour coincided with his appearance as the titular character in "Alex", based on the comic in "The Daily Telegraph". The play ran at the Arts Theatre between October and November 2007 and featured Bathurst interacting with other characters projected onto a screen behind him. He was attracted to the role because of the "duplicity and guile" Alex uses to get himself out of tight situations. The role won him a nomination for Best Solo Performance at the What's on Stage Awards. He reprised the role in an international tour from September to November 2008, playing in Melbourne, Sydney, Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai. As Alex he presented a ten-part series on Classic FM, which won a Gold Award at the Sony Radio Academy Awards in 2012. He now performs Alex as a corporate after-dinner entertainment. 2007 also saw Bathurst perform as linguist Charles in the first series of the BBC Radio 4 sitcom "Hut 33". He reprised the role for two more series in 2008 and 2009.


title: Robert Bathurst

text: In 2009, he made his third and final appearance as art dealer James Garrett in "My Family". He also played the role of Mr Weston in the BBC costume drama "Emma", which was broadcast in October 2009 on BBC One. He previously played Weston in a two-part adaptation of "Emma" for BBC Radio 4 in 2000. Between January and April 2010, Bathurst starred as Garry Essendine in a national touring revival of Noël Coward's "Present Laughter". He had not seen "Present Laughter" before, though had seen several Coward plays in his 20s and did not imitate Coward's speech patterns while performing. "Present Laughter" was the first time Bathurst had appeared in a Coward play and he was cast in another, "Blithe Spirit", later in the year, as Charles Condomine. The play toured theatres around southern England in 2010 and early 2011 before beginning a three-month run at the Apollo Theatre in London.


title: Robert Bathurst

text: On television in 2010, Bathurst starred as Percy Hamleigh in the German-Canadian miniseries "The Pillars of the Earth" and had a recurring role as widower Sir Anthony Strallan in the period drama "Downton Abbey". In 2011 he starred as John Le Mesurier in the Hattie Jacques biopic "Hattie", and joined the cast of the long-running ITV drama "Wild at Heart".


title: Robert Bathurst

text: In 2014 he appeared in the "Midsomer Murders" “The Flying Club” as Perry Darnley. Bathurst is to star as Andy in the upcoming Sky1 television film television film adaptation of the M. C. Beaton novel "Agatha Raisin: The Quiche of Death" as Andy Cummings-Browne (2014).


title: Robert Bathurst

text: In 2019 Bathurst portrayed Sergeant Wilson in "", a recreation of three missing episodes of the BBC comedy "Dad's Army". And portrayed Jeffrey Bernard in "Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell" at the Coach and Horses in Greek Street, Soho. Bathurst said he jumped at the opportunity: "It’s so obviously a good idea, and appealingly odd. It brings Jeffrey Bernard’s journalism on to the stage, his own version of himself, not necessarily how others saw him." He added: "It’s a brilliantly funny, sour and surprisingly moving manifesto for the right of people to destroy their liver and wallet in any way they choose."


title: Robert Bathurst

text: Bathurst met artist Victoria Threlfall through mutual friends and they married in 1985. They have four daughters: Matilda, Clemency, Oriel and Honor.


title: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

text: The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (sometimes initialized as DCC, and officially nicknamed "America's Sweethearts") are the National Football League cheerleading squad representing the Dallas Cowboys team.


title: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

text: During a game between the Cowboys and the Atlanta Falcons at the Cotton Bowl during the 1967 season, the short skirted, well-endowed stripper named Bubbles Cash caused a tremendous stir in the crowd that turned to cheers when she walked down the stands staircase on the 50-yard line carrying cotton candy in each hand. She became an instant public sensation in Dallas, also gaining attention from Cowboys General Manager Tex Schramm. Understanding the importance of the entertainment industry to the Cowboys' profitability, Schramm was inspired to form a cheerleading squad dressed in similar fashion to Cash.


title: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

text: Preparing for the 1970 season, Schramm decided to change the Cheerleaders' image to boost attendance. At first the main change was to create an all-female squad and change the uniforms and style of cheerleading routines to be primarily dance and less like traditional acrobatic routines like that of high school or college cheerleading squads. The ten local high school cheerleaders who were selected for the 1970 season were also involved in the task of totally redesigning the uniforms and creating new dance style cheer routines under Dee Brock's direction and with the help of a choreographer. In 1971, the qualification rules changed to allow not only local female cheerleaders to compete for a spot on the squad, but also high school drill team officers. Then in 1972, Texie Waterman, a New York choreographer, was recruited and assigned to auditioning and training an entirely new female squad who would all be over 18 years of age, searching for attractive appearance, athletic ability, and raw talent as performers. Since the 1972 squad consisted of adults, this allowed the possibility of again redesigning the uniforms to introduce a more revealing look (most notably transitioning from the traditional cheerleader skirt to hot pants) closer to the classic DCC image that is known today.


title: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

text: Even greater national attention came in the fall of 1977 when the Cowboys, along with designer and photographer Bob Shaw, produced the first NFL cheerleader poster for the Dallas Cowboys. This, and an "Esquire" magazine article by Shaw in October 1977, led to the squad appearing on two network TV specials, "NBC Rock-n-Roll Sports Classic" and "The Osmond Brothers Special" on ABC. Also that year, the DCC produced their own one-hour special, "The 36 Most Beautiful Girls in Texas", which aired on ABC prior to the season opener of Monday Night Football (which coincidentally was a game that the Cowboys hosted). On 14 January, 1979, the made-for-TV movie "The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders" aired. Starring Bert Convy and Jane Seymour, it had a 48% share of the national television audience.


title: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

text: On 13 January, 1980, a sequel to the original TV movie, "The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders II", aired. The Cheerleaders have made many other TV appearances since then, and their likeness has been featured on various merchandise, such as posters, T-shirts, trading cards, and calendars.


title: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

text: The DCC has also toured throughout the United States (on and off the field), as well as overseas. Included in these tours are regular appearances in United Service Organizations (USO) tours, which began during the 1979 holiday season for U.S. troops stationed in South Korea.


title: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

text: The DCC held a ceremony inaugurating the second game of the 1994 FIFA World Cup between Spain and South Korea.


title: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

text: Former DCCs Kelli McGonagill Finglass and Judy Trammell became the squad's director and choreographer, respectively.


title: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

text: From 2006-2021, the Cheerleaders produced their own reality television series, "", which aired on Country Music Television (CMT) during the NFL football season. The series followed the auditioning process of the annual squad. Traditionally, each episode would include segments of the “Training Camp Candidates” and “Veteran Candidates” dancing along to music and learning new choreography from guest choreographers. Despite the show running successfully for 16 seasons, CMT decided to not renew the show for its 17th season and the cheerleaders have since been looking for a new network.


title: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

text: The DCC also held an opening ceremony and podium at the 2013 and 2018 United States Grand Prix races in Austin, Texas. They received the FIFA delegation to promote the 2022 FIFA World Cup.


title: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

text: The DCC releases several calendars every year. More recently, in addition to their annual swimsuit calendar, they also release an annual "sideline calendar," featuring photos of the DCC cheering and performing at Cowboys home games. In recent years the DCC have become advocates for female empowerment in the DFW metroplex.


title: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

text: The DCC were the subject of the documentary released in November 2018. It focuses on Suzanne Mitchell who was the director of the team from 1972 to 1989.


title: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

text: In December 2021, the magazine "Texas Monthly" released an 8-episode podcast called "America's Girls," featuring interviews with former cheerleaders and other people involved with the DCC.


title: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

text: Along with their two TV movies, the DCC has also appeared on numerous TV shows and specials as performers, guest acting roles, and game show contestants. Some of the shows on which they have appeared include:


title: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders

text: Many former DCCs have gone on to achieve success in show business and other notable endeavors. They include:


title: Country Grammar

text: Country Grammar is the debut studio album by American rapper and singer Nelly. It was released on June 27, 2000, by Universal Records. The production on the album was handled by Jason "Jay E" Epperson, with additional production by C-Love, Kevin Law, City Spud, Steve "Blast" Wills and Basement Beats. Nelly contributed to all lyrics on the album, with Epperson and City Spud also contributing. The album introduced a unique St. Louis sound, and introduces Nelly's vocal style of pop-rap singalongs and Midwestern, Missouri twang. It was supported four successful singles: "Country Grammar (Hot Shit)", "E.I.", "Ride wit Me" and "Batter Up". Its lead single, "Country Grammar (Hot Shit)", peaked at number 7 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and UK Singles Chart. Its second single "E.I." peaked at number 16 on the Hot 100, number 12 on the UK Singles Chart and number 11 on the ARIA Singles Chart. "Ride wit Me" peaked within the top five on the Hot 100, ARIA Singles Chart, Irish Singles Chart and UK Singles Chart. The album's fourth and final single, "Batter Up" featuring St. Lunatics members Murphy Lee and Ali, achieved moderate chart success.


title: Country Grammar

text: "Country Grammar" received positive reviews, with critics praising Nelly's vocal style and the album's production. It topped the US "Billboard" 200 chart for five consecutive weeks, and the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart for six consecutive weeks. It peaked in the top five on the New Zealand Albums Chart and Australian Albums Chart, as well as the top ten on the Canadian Albums Chart and Dutch Albums Chart. The album was certified three times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) and Music Canada (MC). The former denoted shipments of 45,000 copies while the latter denoted 300,000 copies.


title: Country Grammar

text: In 2016, "Country Grammar" became the ninth hip hop album to be certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipment of 10 million copies in the US. Its commercial success secured Nelly's status as one of the most successful hip hop acts of the 2000s decade. On "Billboard" decade-end chart, Nelly ranked as the third most successful act of the 2000s decade, due largely to the success of "Country Grammar" and his follow-up album "Nellyville" (2002).


title: Country Grammar

text: In his early years, Nelly frequently moved locations around the United States, before residing in the city of St. Louis, Missouri. It was there where he discovered rap artists synonymous inside the city. In his teenage years, Nelly moved to University City, a suburb of St. Louis, where he shifted his aspirations from becoming a baseball player to producing stories and rhymes. Along with some friends from high school: Ali Jones, Torhi "Murphy Lee" Harper, Kyjuan and Lavell "City Spud" Webb, Nelly formed the group St. Lunatics in 1993. Frustrated by the lack of attention from record companies, the group formed the consensus to allow Nelly to pursue a solo career, while Ali and Murphy Lee released their own solo albums. Nelly produced demos, which were sent to national labels, eventually gaining attention from Universal Records who signed a record deal with Nelly and the St. Lunatics in 1999, with Universal releasing the former's debut album, "Country Grammar", in 2000. All songs on "Country Grammar" were recorded by Steve Eigner, and mixed by Rich Travali. Kenny Dystra provided recording assistance and Jason Standard assisted in mixing. Mastering was performed by Herb Powers, with A&R directed by Kevin Law and Coordinated by Craig Yoskowitz. Management was provided by Tony Davis and Courtney Benson, with legality handled by Todd Rubenstein. Creative direction was handled by Sandra Brummels, with design done by BENTO Design and photography done by Jonathen Mannion.


title: Country Grammar

text: Much of Nelly's rap style draws from his origins, as it contains Southern drawl with Midwestern, Missouri twang, that incorporates both country and urban styles. In conjunction, Nelly approaches a pop-rap singalong vocal style, which AllMusic's Jason Birchmeier notes present within "Country Grammar" tracks including "Ride wit Me" and "E.I.". Peter Shapiro described Nelly's singing and rapping as using "unforgettable hooks based on schoolyard songs, double-dutch chants, and nonsense rhymes". Much of "Country Grammar" tracks are bass-heavy, that are primarily Southern hip-hop based and minimalistic. In the album's self-titled track, Nelly's vocals are slurred and slow, and are a "smooth, slippery-fast instrument" with "reggae inflections". "Rolling Stone" journalist Kris Ex found the song's lyrics to depict Nelly "riding around town in an expensive SUV with an assault weapon". "Ride wit Me" is a rap and pop crossover that samples DeBarge's 1982 song "I Like It", and its lyrics feature Nelly introspecting. Ex found the chorus of "E.I." to contain the vocal style of rapper The Notorious B.I.G. "Luven Me" samples "Don't Stop (Ever Loving Me)" by One Way and "Whatever You Want" by Tony! Toni! Toné!. Steve Sutherland of "NME" interpreted "Luven Me" as a "virtual rewrite" of rapper Tupac Shakur's 1995 "Dear Mama".


title: Country Grammar

text: "Country Grammar" was released as the album's first single on February 29, 2000 in the US. The song was written by Nelly and Jason "Jay E" Epperson, and produced by the latter. Its lyrics are based on the children clapping game Down Down Baby. "Country Grammar (Hot Shit)" peaked at number seven on the US "Billboard" Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart. It also reached number ten on the Canadian Hot 100 and twenty on ARIA Singles Chart. The song was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). The second single, "E.I.", was written by Nelly and Epperson and produced by the latter. It reached number sixteen on the Hot 100, number eleven on the UK Singles Chart and number twelve on the ARIA Singles Chart. It was certified gold by the ARIA.


title: Country Grammar

text: Written by Nelly and Epperson and produced by the latter, "Ride wit Me" was released as "Country Grammar" third single. The track features City Spud, and reached number three on the Hot 100, the highest-charting song from "Country Grammar" in the US. It also peaked at number three on the UK Singles chart, number four on the ARIA Singles Chart, Irish Singles Chart, number five on the Dutch Singles Chart and number seven on the Norwegian Singles Chart. It was certified gold by the RIAA and platinum by the ARIA. "Batter Up" was released as the fourth and final single from the album. It features Murphy Lee and Ali, and was written by Nelly, Epperson and Steve "Blast" Wills, while being produced by Wills. "Batter Up" peaked at number eight on the Belgian Singles Chart (Flanders) and number nineteen on the ARIA Singles Chart.


title: Country Grammar

text: "Country Grammar" received acclaim by music critics. Steve Sutherland lauded the album in his review for "NME", praising Nelly's utilization of vocal characteristics from other rap artists, including Tupac Shakur and Cypress Hill. Sutherland described the album as a "rarity", noting stand-out tracks such as the "seductive rap/pop crossover" "Ride wit Me", while likening "Batter Up" to "DMX with a humour infusion". He closed his review declaring "Country Grammar" as "album of the year". While writing that "Country Grammar" demonstrates that "tiresome rap topics" are not restricted to "the coasts", "Entertainment Weekly" David Browne highlighted Nelly's "smooth, slippery-fast" voice, as well as the album's "appealingly minimalist tracks" and "introspective moments" such as "Ride wit Me".


title: Country Grammar

text: In "The Village Voice", Robert Christgau wrote that Nelly presents an "easy mix of N.O. Bounce, Cleveland thug harmony, and L.A. tweedle-twaddle", finding that Nelly's heavy accent makes his hedonism more accessible. "People" noted that Nelly implements his own "laid-back charm" to "Country Grammar" southern hip hop, and that while he shows "limited thematic vocabulary", he articulates escapism to compensate for this. AllMusic's Jason Birchmeier praised the album's "tongue-twisting" self-titled track as "infectious", noting other tracks to contain the same elements, including "Ride wit Me" and "E.I.". Birchmeier wrote that the album transcends regional styles such as southern hip hop to appeal to rap-pop audiences, while praising producer Jason "Jay E" Epperson's contribution to the album.


title: Country Grammar

text: Reviewing "Country Grammar" for "Rolling Stone", Kris Ex wrote that the album's "liquid bass bumps" interlope well with Nelly's "wordplay-heavy sing-song rhyme-flow", while declaring "Country Grammar" to be "the best thing to come out of St. Louis" since comedian Redd Foxx. At the 2001 Soul Train Music Awards, "Country Grammar" earned Nelly the award for Best R&B/Soul or Rap New Artist. Nelly was nominated for four awards at the Online Hip-Hop Awards, for Favorite Music Video, Song of the Year (both for "E.I."), Album of the Year (for "Country Grammar") and Outstanding Graphic Design for his official website. He won the awards for Song of the Year and Artist of the Year.


title: Country Grammar

text: "Country Grammar" entered the "Billboard" 200 on the week of July 15, 2000, at number 3, selling 235,000 copies. The album remained within the top 10 for several weeks before topping it on the week of August 17, 2000, selling 235,000 copies and passing 1.5 million in sales that week. "Entertainment Weekly" put the album's sales down to its support by its lead single, "Country Grammar (Hot Shit)", as well as the lack of releases from other music artists during that period. The album sold 235,000 copies again the following week, continuing to stay atop the "Billboard" 200. "Country Grammar" topped US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart for six consecutive weeks. On October 30, 2000, the album had sold three million copies, and was certified three-times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), denoting shipments of three million copies. On June 29, 2002, "Country Grammar" had sold 7.7 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. On July 21, 2016, the album was certified Diamond by the RIAA, denoting shipment of ten million copies in the US.