When Chad Mitchell left the Chad Mitchell Trio to pursue a solo career, he was replaced by John Denver. The original group (Mitchell, Mike Kobluk, and Joe Frazier) met while students at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington.
Bing Crosby attended Gonzaga University for three years, not earning a degree then. But in 1937 he got an honorary degree from the school.
“Big Noise from Winnetka” is a jazz song co-written by composer and bass player Bob Haggart and drummer Ray Bauduc with lyrics by Gil Rodin and Bob Crosby, who were members of a sub-group of the Bob Crosby Orchestra called “The Bobcats”. They also were the first to record it, in 1938. That recording is remarkable for its unusual duet feature: Haggart whistles the melody and plays the bass, while only Bauduc accompanies him on the drums. Halfway through the solo, Bauduc starts drumming on the strings of the double bass, while Haggart continues to play with his left hand, creating a percussive bass solo. The song was a spontaneous composition, created at the Blackhawk in Chicago in 1938. When some of the band were late getting back from a break, Haggart and Bauduc started free improvising while they waited and “Big Noise” was the result.
Although Chief Black Hawk is widely associated with Illinois history, the Chicago Blackhawks hockey team, using his image as their team logo, was not named directly after him. Team founder Frederic McLaughlin was a member of the Blackhawk Division, a machinegun battalion in WWI, after whom the team was named.
The Detroit Red Wings were originally the Victoria Cougars, but when the Western Hockey League folded, a Detroit team was placed in the National Hockey League, and the new owners bought the Victoria players and named their new team the Detroit Cougars. With no stadium to play in in their first season, 1927, the team played in Windsor, Ontario. The next season, 1928, they moved to the Detroit Olympia, which was their home rink until 1979. A new owner changed the name to the Red Wings in 1932, in memory of the team nickname, the Winged Wheelers, of the Montreal Maroons.
The NBA basketball team the Detroit Pistons were originally (when I was in high school) the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, owned and operated by the Zollner company, which manufactured pistons for Detroit automakers. They were an early NBA franchise that played its home games in a high school gym
The Lycoming XR-7755 was the largest piston-driven aircraft engine ever produced, with 36 cylinders totaling about 7,750 cubic inches of displacement and a power output of 5,000 horsepower. Only two examples were built before the project was terminated in 1946. The original test engine is now in the Smithsonian Institution.
The Lycoming XR-7755 was intended for the aircraft that became the Convair B-36 Peacemaker, which was eventually powered by six Pratt & Whitney R-4360 “Wasp Major” engines, with 4 GE J-47 jets near the wingtips to provide takeoff boost power. The configuration was nicknamed “six turning and four burning”, but the engines’ chronic reliability problems led to variants including words like “two joking and four smoking”.
Western Kansas has more museums per capita than any other region in the USA. Seemingly, one in almost every town. The Kansas Department of Wildlife maintains a museum in Pratt, Kansas, featuring aquaria where visitors can see native fish, as well as other wildlife displays.
In 1962, Julie Andrews was among the first to make fun of her role in The Sound of Music. She and and Carol Burnett parodied the Trapp Family Singers as part of their show, “Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall - The Pratt Family Singers.”
On its webpage, Carnegie Hall quotes the wife of violinist Mischa Elman as having perhaps the best story of the origin of a famous joke concerning the venue—
Fiddle player Doug Kershaw was born in an unincorporated community called Tiel Ridge in Cameron Parish, and did not learn English until he was eight year old. By that time, he had mastered the fiddle, which he played from the age of five, and was on his way to teaching himself to play 28 instruments.
Cameron Parish, Louisiana, is the largest parish (county) in the state, but the second least populous. It is divided in half by the Calcasieu River, which has no bridge – a ferry crossing is required to drive from one side of the parish to the other.
Pennsylvania politician Simon Cameron was a supporter of Abraham Lincoln, who made him Secretary of War when he was elected President in 1860. Cameron only served a year before resigning amidst allegations of disorganization and corruption during the early phases of the American Civil War. Cameron was then appointed to be the minister to Russia.
Candace Cameron Bure, who played D.J. Tanner on “Full House”, is married to Russian NHL hockey player Valeri Bure. The couple was first introduced at a charity hockey game by her “Full House” co-star Dave Coulier.
American Idol winner and country music star Carrie Underwood is married to former NHL star Mike Fisher. Fisher retired from active playing in 2017.
Carrie Fisher’s mother, Debbie Reynolds, lived next door to her for most of her adult life.
Early in the production of Singing in the Rain, Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor snubbed Debbie Reynolds out of resentment that they’d have to carry a non-dancer through the dance numbers. But they relented after she did some hard training with Fred Astaire and proved she was up to the role.
Reynolds said the “Good Morning” number left her feet bleeding, but it could have been worse - the iconic “Make 'Em Laugh” number left O’Connor bedridden for three days.
And then all of the footage of “Make 'Em Laugh” was accidentally destroyed and O’Connor had to do it all over again.
Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, named after the Arizona native who became the first female justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, is one of the professional graduate schools of Arizona State University, located in Phoenix, Ariz. O’Connor herself was a graduate of Stanford Law School, where she briefly dated her future colleague William H. Rehnquist.