IN: William James Dixon (July 1, 1915 - January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar and was a capable singer, but he is perhaps best known as one of the most prolific songwriters of his time. Next to Muddy Waters, Dixon is recognized as the most influential person in shaping the post-World War II sound of the Chicago blues. Dixon's songs have been recorded by countless musicians in many genres as well as by various ensembles in which he participated.

Dixon left Mississippi for Chicago in 1936. A man of considerable stature, standing 6 and a half feet tall and weighing over 250 pounds, he took up boxing, at which he was successful, winning the Illinois State Golden Gloves Heavyweight Championship (Novice Division) in 1937. He became a professional boxer and worked briefly as Joe Louis's sparring partner, but after four fights he left boxing in a dispute with his manager over money.  Dixon met Leonard Caston at a boxing gym, where they would harmonize at times. Dixon performed in several vocal groups in Chicago, but it was Caston that persuaded him to pursue music seriously. Caston built him his first bass, made of a tin can and one string. Dixon's experience singing bass made the instrument familiar. He also learned to play the guitar.  In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes, with Caston, Joe Bell, Gene Gilmore and Willie Hawthorne. The group blended blues, jazz, and vocal harmonies, in the mode of the Ink Spots. Dixon's progress on the upright bass came to an abrupt halt with the advent of World War II, when he refused induction into military service as a conscientious objector and was imprisoned for ten months. He refused to go to war because he would not fight for a nation in which institutionalized racism and racist laws were prevalent. After the war, he formed a group named the Four Jumps of Jive. He then reunited with Caston, forming the Big Three Trio, which went on to record for Columbia Records.

What was significant about his adult life?

OUT: In 1939, Dixon was a founding member of the Five Breezes,


IN: Gary Barlow OBE (born 20 January 1971) is an English singer, songwriter and record producer. He is best known as the lead singer of the British pop group Take That. Barlow also served as head judge of The X Factor UK in 2011, 2012 and 2013 and Let It Shine in 2017. Barlow is one of Britain's most successful songwriters, having written fourteen number one singles and twenty-four top 10 hits.

On 25 June 2013, it was announced that Barlow had been signed up to work on a new musical version of Finding Neverland and will co-write the score for the theatre project, which is being developed by Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein. Barlow said of the project: "This is something I've always wanted to do so it's a real privilege to be involved. I'm really enjoying working with the team and I love the story; it's also great to be working with a legendary creative like Harvey Weinstein." Weinstein echoed the sentiment by expressing his admiration for Barlow, whom he described as "one of the finest songwriters in the world".  On 1 March 2014, Barlow attended the Bob and Harvey Weinstein's pre-Academy Awards party at the Montage in Beverly Hills to perform a selection of songs from the musical score he had written for Finding Neverland. He played the lead role of Peter Pan author J. M. Barrie, and sung a duet with noted British musical actress Laura Michelle Kelly along with four back-up artists featured in the Oscar-nominated documentary 20 Feet from Stardom. Barlow's performance was well received, and after a successful performance run in Boston, Finding Neverland opened on Broadway in spring 2015. On its first Broadway preview, the show sold out the theatre and posted a box office performance that, if it continued for a whole week of performances, would have seen the show top $1 million.  Gary has also co-written a musical alongside hometown friend Tim Firth, titled The Girls, which opened at the Phoenix Theatre, London in January 2017.

Did he like working on Finding Neverland?

OUT: Barlow said of the project: "This is something I've always wanted to do so it's a real privilege to be involved.


IN: John F. Stossel was born on March 6, 1947, in Chicago Heights, Illinois, the younger of two sons, to Jewish parents who left Germany before Hitler rose to power. They joined a Congregationalist church in the U.S., and Stossel was raised Protestant. He grew up on Chicago's affluent North Shore and graduated from New Trier High School. Stossel characterizes his older brother, Tom, as "the superstar of the family", commenting, "While I partied and played poker, he studied hard, got top grades, and went to Harvard Medical School."

Progressive organizations such as Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) and Media Matters for America (MMfA) have criticized Stossel's work, for what they perceived as a lack of balance of coverage and distortion of facts. For example, Stossel was criticized for a segment on his October 11, 1999, show during which he argued that AIDS research has received too much funding, "25 times more than on Parkinson's, which kills more people." FAIR responded that AIDS had killed more people in the United States in 1999, but Stossel was speaking in more broad terms than a single country over a single year.  In a February 2000 Salon.com feature on Stossel entitled "Prime-time propagandist", David Mastio wrote that Stossel has a conflict of interest in donating profits from his public speaking engagements to, among others, a non-profit called "Stossel in the Classroom" which includes material for use in schools, some of which uses material made by Stossel.  University of Texas economist James K. Galbraith has alleged that Stossel, in his September 1999 special Is America #1?, used an out-of-context clip of Galbraith to convey the notion that Galbraith advocated the adoption by Europe of the free market economics practiced by the United States, when in fact Galbraith actually advocated that Europe adopt some of the United States' social benefit transfer mechanisms such as Social Security, which is the economically opposite view. Stossel denied any misrepresentation of Galbraith's views and stated that it was not his intention to convey that Galbraith agreed with all of the special's ideas. However, he re-edited that portion of the program for its September 2000 repeat, in which Stossel paraphrased, "Even economists who like Europe's policies, like James Galbraith, now acknowledge America's success."

What did John say about what David Mastio wrote?

OUT: