IN: Douglas Clare Fischer (October 22, 1928 - January 26, 2012) was an American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader. After graduating from Michigan State University (from which, five decades later, he would receive an honorary doctorate), he became the pianist and arranger for the vocal group the Hi-Lo's in the late 1950s. Fischer went on to work with Donald Byrd and Dizzy Gillespie, and became known for his Latin and bossa nova recordings in the 1960s. He composed the Latin jazz standard "Morning", and the jazz standard "Pensativa".

In 1975, after ten years of studiowork and artistically successful yet obscure solo records, Fischer found a new direction. Just like Hancock and Chick Corea he was a pioneer on the electric keyboard, and in that capacity he joined vibraphonist Cal Tjader's group. The reunion with Tjader gave a new impulse to Fischer's love of Latin-American music. He started his own group with Latino musicians, "Salsa Picante", which showed great eclecticism in musical styles. Later he expanded to include four vocalists billed separately as "2 + 2".  The album 2+2 won a Grammy in 1981. After that he recorded And Sometimes Voices and Free Fall with the vocal group. Free Fall was nominated in three categories for the Grammy Awards and won under the category of "Best Jazz Album By A Vocal Duo Or Group". Crazy Bird was with the instrumental group and Alone Together, a solo piano album recorded on a Hamburg Steinway. It was recorded for Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer and the German company MPS Records.  In the seventies, Fischer began doing orchestral sweeteners for R&B groups. His nephew, Andre Fischer, was the drummer of the band Rufus, featuring Chaka Khan. "Apparently the arrangements I made for their early records were appreciated, for in the following years I was hired almost exclusively by black artists." Among the artists Fischer worked for are The Jacksons, Earl Klugh, Switch, Debarge, Shotgun (a late 70s offshoot of 24-Carat Black) and Atlantic Starr. His walls are now covered with gold and platinum records from these recordings, Grammy Award Nominations, and several NARAS MVP Awards, culminating in an MVP-emeritus in 1985.  Once his fame as an arranger was established, Fischer also worked with pop musicians like Paul McCartney, Prince, Celine Dion and Robert Palmer. "I am surprised that my arrangements are now considered one of the prerequisites for a hit album. People feel that they make a song sound almost classical."  Classical concert artist Richard Stoltzman commissioned him in 1983 to write a symphonic work using Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn themes. The result, "The Duke, Swee'pea and Me", an eleven and a half minute orchestral work, was performed with a symphony orchestra and Stoltzman on clarinet all around the world.

What else did it win

OUT: Free Fall was nominated in three categories for the Grammy Awards and won under the category of "Best Jazz Album By A Vocal Duo Or Group".


IN: Glen Travis Campbell was born on April 22, 1936 in Billstown, a tiny community near Delight in Pike County, Arkansas, to John Wesley (a sharecropper) and Carrie Dell (Stone) Campbell. Campbell was the seventh son of 12 children. The family lived on a farm where they barely got by growing cotton, corn, watermelons and potatoes. "We had no electricity," he said, and money was scarce. "

Campbell made a cameo appearance in the 1980 Clint Eastwood movie Any Which Way You Can, for which he recorded the title song. He gave up smoking in March 1992, and believed it improved his singing voice. In 1991, Campbell voiced Chanticleer the rooster in Don Bluth's live action/animated film Rock-a-Doodle.  In 1999 he was featured on VH-1's Behind the Music, and on A&E Network's Biography and a PBS in concert special in 2001. He also appeared on a number of CMT programs, where he ranked among their Greatest Men of Country Music.  He is credited with giving Alan Jackson his first big break after he recorded with Campbell's music publishing business in the early 1990s. Campbell also served as an inspiration to Keith Urban, who cites Campbell as a strong influence on his performing career.  In 2005, Campbell was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. It was announced in April 2008 that Campbell was returning to his signature label, Capitol, to release his new album, Meet Glen Campbell. The album was released on August 19. With this album, he branched off in a different musical direction, covering tracks from artists such as Travis, U2, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Jackson Browne, and Foo Fighters. It was Campbell's first release on Capitol in over 15 years. Musicians from Cheap Trick and Jellyfish contributed to the album, as well. The first single, a cover of Green Day's "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)", was released to radio in July 2008.

How many albums did he release during this time period?

OUT: 


IN: Alexander Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on March 3, 1847. The family home was at 16 South Charlotte Street, and has a stone inscription marking it as Alexander Graham Bell's birthplace. He had two brothers: Melville James Bell (1845-70) and Edward Charles Bell (1848-67), both of whom would die of tuberculosis. His father was Professor Alexander Melville Bell, a phonetician, and his mother was Eliza Grace (nee Symonds).

Although Alexander Graham Bell is most often associated with the invention of the telephone, his interests were extremely varied. According to one of his biographers, Charlotte Gray, Bell's work ranged "unfettered across the scientific landscape" and he often went to bed voraciously reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica, scouring it for new areas of interest. The range of Bell's inventive genius is represented only in part by the 18 patents granted in his name alone and the 12 he shared with his collaborators. These included 14 for the telephone and telegraph, four for the photophone, one for the phonograph, five for aerial vehicles, four for "hydroairplanes", and two for selenium cells. Bell's inventions spanned a wide range of interests and included a metal jacket to assist in breathing, the audiometer to detect minor hearing problems, a device to locate icebergs, investigations on how to separate salt from seawater, and work on finding alternative fuels.  Bell worked extensively in medical research and invented techniques for teaching speech to the deaf. During his Volta Laboratory period, Bell and his associates considered impressing a magnetic field on a record as a means of reproducing sound. Although the trio briefly experimented with the concept, they could not develop a workable prototype. They abandoned the idea, never realizing they had glimpsed a basic principle which would one day find its application in the tape recorder, the hard disc and floppy disc drive, and other magnetic media.  Bell's own home used a primitive form of air conditioning, in which fans blew currents of air across great blocks of ice. He also anticipated modern concerns with fuel shortages and industrial pollution. Methane gas, he reasoned, could be produced from the waste of farms and factories. At his Canadian estate in Nova Scotia, he experimented with composting toilets and devices to capture water from the atmosphere. In a magazine interview published shortly before his death, he reflected on the possibility of using solar panels to heat houses.

What ideas did he have regarding teaching speech to the deaf?

OUT: