Charlie Rich

His son, Charlie Rich, Jr., is also a noted musician. He died from natural causes aged 94. Charlie Rich died in Hammond, Louisiana in 1995 at the age of 62. In 2004, he was presented with a lifetime achievement Grammy Award. In the latter part of his life, Rich acquired the nickname "The Silver Fox" in reference to his full head of grey hair. Shaw himself would guest conduct from time to time, ending his self-imposed retirement. Other than his music, he is famous for his antics at the 1975 Country Music Association awards ceremony, when he set fire to the envelope that announced John Denver as his successor for CMA Entertainer Of The Year. In 1981, he organised a new Artie Shaw Band, with clarinetist Dick Johnson as band leader and soloist.

Rich was born in Colt, Arkansas to rural cotton farmers. In his later years, Shaw lived and wrote in the Newbury Park section of Thousand Oaks, California. Charlie Rich (December 14, 1932 - July 25, 1995) was an American country, jazz, and blues musician. The committee was investigating a peace activist organization, the World Peace Congress, which it considered a Communist front. 1974 CMA Entertainer of the Year. In 1953, Shaw was brought up before the House Un-American Activites Committee for his liberal activities. 1973 Grammy Award - Best Country Vocal Performance. He had two children.

1973 CMA Album of the Year, Behind Closed Doors. A self-proclaimed "very difficult man", Shaw was married eight times; it became a national joke to have been "married as many times as Artie Shaw." Among his wives were Jane Cairns, Margaret Allen, Betty Kern (daughter of songwriter Jerome Kern), author Kathleen Winsor, and actresses Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Doris Dowling and Evelyn Keyes. 1973 CMA Male Vocalist of the Year. For the Marx Brothers' movie, The Big Store Shaw co-wrote the song, "If It's You." He also had a significant role in the Fred Astaire film Second Chorus. He wrote The Trouble With Cinderella and was working on The Education of Albie Snow when he died. He focused on writing, concentrating on semi-biographical fiction.

In 1954, Shaw stopped playing the clarinet, citing his own perfectionism, which, he later said, would have killed him. He began psychoanalysis and began to pursue a writing career. He credited his time in the navy as a period of renewed introspection. Throughout his musical career, Shaw would take sabbaticals where he would quit the business.

He received a medical discharge. He spent approximately 18 months playing for navy personnel, sometimes as many as four shows a day. Navy (along with his entire band) and served with them in the Pacific theater (similar to Glenn Miller's wartime band in Europe). During WWII he enlisted in the U.S.

At the height of his popularity, Shaw reportedly earned US$30,000 per week, a very large amount during the Great Depression. His band became enormously successful and his playing, dismissed at first, eventually rivaled that of Benny Goodman: Longtime Duke Ellington clarinetist Barney Bigard--himself a talented musician--cited Shaw as his favorite clarinet player. He hired Billie Holiday as his band's vocalist, becoming the first white bandleader to hire a full-time black female singer. His piece "Interlude in B-flat" was one of the earliest examples of what would be later dubbed third stream.

Shaw was know for being an innovator in the big band idiom, at the time using unusual instrumentation. During the Swing Era, his big band was very popular with hits like "Begin the Beguine", "Lady Be Good", and "Frenesi". He returned to New York and became a session musician. He was born in New York City, United States, and began learning the saxophone when he was 15 and, by age 16, had begun to tour with a band.

Arthur Jacob Arshawsky (May 23, 1910 – December 30, 2004), better known as Artie Shaw, was an accomplished jazz clarinetist, composer, bandleader, and writer. Download sample of "Begin the Beguine" by Artie Shaw, a surprise hit that turned the clarinetist into a swing star.