The McGuire Sisters

In 2001, they were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame. They have also been inducted into the Coca-Cola Hall of Fame and the Headliners' Hall of Fame. The word muse is used figuratively to denote someone who inspires an artist. In 1994, they were inducted into the National Broadcasting Hall of Fame. The poet Sappho of Lesbos was also paid the very great compliment of being called "the tenth Muse". Seventeen years later, however, they joined as an act again in response to fans' entreaties. One side-effect of this movement was the use of the word "museum" (originally, "cult place of the Muses") to refer to a place for the public display of knowledge. Phyllis went to a solo act; Dorothy and Christine became totally devoted to their families. nine Muses), and was attended by Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin.

In 1968, they retired from public performance. A popular Masonic lodge in pre-Revolutionary Paris was called Neuf Soeurs ("nine sisters", i.e. The Coca-Cola company signed them to a contract with the highest fee in advertising history up to that date. Many Enlightenment figures sought to re-establish a "Cult of the Muses" in the 18th century. Bush), and for Queen Elizabeth II, as well as appearing on many top television shows. The Library of Alexandria and its circle of scholars were formed around a mousaion ("museum" or shrine of the Muses) close by the tomb of Alexander the Great. W. Muse-worship was also often associated with the hero-cults of poets: the tombs of Archilochus on Thasos and Hesiod and Thamyris (whom they blinded) in Boeotia all played host to festivals in which poetic recitations were accompanied by sacrifices to the Muses.

They performed for five Presidents of the United States (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. The Muses were especially venerated in Boeotia, near Helicon, and in Delphi and the Parnassus, where Apollo became known as Mousagetes "Muse-leader". In 1952, they appeared on Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, and as a result, Godfrey hired them for his other shows, where they remained for seven years. The Muses were also occasionally referred to as Corycides or Corycian nymphs after a cave on Mount Parnassos called the Corycian Cave. They incorporated a more diverse repertoire for these, extending themselves to more than the hymns they had sung at church. Other fountains, called Hippocrene and Pirene were also important to the Muses. When they started in 1935, Phyllis was only four years old. Eventually, they sang on other occasions than church-related ones; by 1949, they were singing at military bases and veterans' hospitals. They were sometimes called Aganippids because of their association with a fountain called Aganippe.

They sang at weddings, funerals, and church revivals. Local cults of the Muses were often associated with springs or fountains. They were born and grew up in Middletown, Ohio, where their mother was an ordained minister and let them sing in the church as young girls. When Pythagoras arrived at Croton, his first advice to the Crotoniates was to build a shrine of the Muses at the center of the city, to promote civic harmony and learning. They consisted of Christine McGuire (born July 30, 1926), Dorothy McGuire (born February 13, 1928), and Phyllis McGuire (born February 14, 1931). And Dante Alighieri, in Canto II of The Inferno:. The McGuire Sisters were a singing trio in American popular music. ..

Cincinnati Enquirer article on the sisters' home (http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2003/07/27/loc_mcguires27.html). Two classic examples: Homer, Book I of The Odyssey:. McGuire Sisters' page on the Vocal Group Hall of Fame (http://www.vghf.com/Inductees/mcguire_sisters.htm) site. Originally the invocation of the Muse was an indication that the speaker was working inside the poetic tradition, according to the established formulae. McGuire Sisters' page on the Primarily A Cappella (http://www.singers.com/jazz/vintage/mcguire.html) site. They have served as aid to an author, or as the true speaker for which an author is only a mouthpiece. McGuire Sisters' page on the National Broadcasting Hall of Fame (http://www.infoage.org/NBHF-mcguire-sisters.html) site. The muses are typically invoked at or near the beginning of an epic poem or story.

They blinded Thamyris for his hubris in challenging them to a contest. They also gathered the pieces of the dead body of Orpheus, son of Calliope, and buried them. The Muses judged the contest between Apollo and Marsyas. Solon sought to perpetuate his political reforms by establishing recitations of his poetry—complete with invocations to his practical-minded Muses—by Athenian boys at festivals every year.

For poet and lawgiver Solon (fragment 13), the Muses were the key to the good life, since they brought both prosperity and friendship. Herodotus, whose primary medium of delivery was public recitation, named each one of the nine books of his Histories after a different Muse. In the archaic period, before the widespread availability of books, this included nearly all of learning: the first Greek book on astronomy, by Thales, was set in dactylic hexameter, as were many works of pre-Socratic philosophy; both Plato and the Pythagoreans explicitly included philosophy as a sub-species of mousike (Strabo 10.3.10). The Muses were therefore both the embodiments and sponsors of performed metrical speech: mousike, whence "music", was the art of the Muses.

The word is probably derived from the Indo-European root *men-, which is also the source of Greek Mnemosyne, Latin Minerva, and English "mind", "mental" and "memory". In Pindar, to "carry a mousa" is "to sing a song". Greek mousa is a common noun as well as a type of goddess: it literally means "song" or "poem". In Roman, Renaissance and Neoclassical art, Muses depicted in sculptures or paintings are often distinguished by certain props or poses, as emblems. Euterpe (music) carries a flute; Calliope (epic poetry) carries a writing tablet; Clio (history) carries a scroll and books; Erato (lyric poetry) is often seen with a lyre and a crown of roses; Melpomene (tragedy) is often seen with a tragic mask; Polyhymnia (sacred poetry) is often seen with a pensive expression; Terpsichore (dancing) is often seen dancing and carrying a lyre; Thalia (comedy) is often seen with a comic mask; and Urania (astronomy) carries a staff pointed at a celestial globe.

However, the association of specific muses with specific art forms is a later innovation, and has been called pedantic. Together, they form a complete picture of the subjects proper to poetic art in the archaic period. The canonical nine Muses are:. Together, they form the complete picture of the preconditions of poetic art in cult practice.

9.29.1). According to Pausanias there were three original Muses: Aoide ("song", "voice"), Melete ("practice" or "occasion") and Mneme ("memory") (Paus. Compare the Roman inspiring nymphs of springs, the Camenae. For Alcman and Mimnermus, they were even more primordial, springing from Uranus and Gaia.

According to Hesiod's Theogony, they are the daughters of Zeus, king of the gods, and Mnemosyne, goddess of memory. The Olympian system set Apollo as their leader, Apollon Mousagetes.. They were water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and Pieris. In Greek mythology, the Muses (Greek Μουσαι, Mousai) are nine archaic goddesses who embody the right evocation of myth, inspired through remembered and improvised song and traditional music and dances.

Urania (astronomy). Thalia (comedy). Terpsichore (dancing). Polyhymnia (sacred poetry).

Melpomene (tragedy). Erato (lyric poetry). Clio (history). Calliope (epic poetry).

Euterpe (music).