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Early Year Of Celebrities : Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin was born to Seth Ward Joplin and Dorothy Bonita East. Her father was an engineer at Texaco. Her mother was the registrar at a business college. Janis had two younger siblings, Michael and Laura. As a teenager, she befriended a group of outcasts, including Jim Langdon and Grant Lyons, the latter of whom played her the blues for the first time. She began singing in the local choir and listening to musicians such as Leadbelly, Bessie Smith, Odetta, and Big Mama Thornton. While at Thomas Jefferson High School, she was mostly shunned. Among her high school classmates was another individual destined for stardom: future college and NFL coach Jimmy Johnson. In a 1992 Sports Illustrated profile of his career, Johnson claimed that he gave Janis the high school nickname of “beat weeds.” Primarily a painter, in high school she first began singing blues and folk music with friends.

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Childhood Of Celebrities : Karen Carpenter

Carpenter was born in New Haven, Connecticut, USA to Agnes Reuwer Tatum and Harold Bertram Carpenter.

Richard had developed an interest in music at an early age, becoming a piano prodigy. The family moved in 1963 to the Los Angeles suburb of Downey, California. The move to Southern California, home of many recording studios and record companies, was intended in part to foster Richard’s budding musical career.

When Karen Carpenter went to Downey High School, she didn’t care for gym class, so she asked Richard to ask the conductor of the band if she could substitute band for gym class. The conductor agreed to take her into the band, and gave her the glockenspiel. She didn’t like the glockenspiel, and upon admiring the performance of a friend who played the drums, she asked the conductor if she could play the drums instead.

Drumming came naturally to Carpenter, and she practiced for several hours a day—her drumming can be heard in many of the Carpenters’ songs. When she was 17, Carpenter went on “The Stillman Diet” with a doctor’s guidance, and lost between 20 and 25 pounds.

In 1968, John Wayne met the Carpenters on a talent show called “Your All American College Show.” He urged Carpenter to try out for a role in the film “True Grit.” Carpenter auditioned, but Kim Darby was selected instead.

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more young photos : alicia keys

Childhood Of Celebrities : Alicia Keys

Keys was the only child born to an Irish-Italian mother, Teresa “Terri” Augello, and a Jamaican father, Craig Cook, in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, New York. Terri was a paralegal and actress, but Keys was raised in a semi-poor home in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Keys’ mother and father separated during her early childhood, thus she was raised by her mother during her formative years. Her mother was the one who most supported her during the time she was developing her musical talents. In 1985, Keys and a group of other girls won the parts of Rudy Huxtable’s sleepover guests in an episode of The Cosby Show called “Slumber Party”, aired on March 28 (the episode became the only time Keys was credited under her real name). She began playing the piano when she was seven, learning classical music by composers such as Beethoven, Mozart, and her favorite, Chopin. The press reported in 2005 that Keys was attempting to reconcile with her father. However, Keys denied this and said her words were misinterpreted.

Keys graduated from the Professional Performing Arts School, a high school in Manhattan, at the age of sixteen as valedictorian. Although accepted to Columbia University at age sixteen with a scholarship, she decided instead to pursue her musical career. Keys signed a demo deal with Jermaine Dupri and his So So Def label, then distributed by Columbia Records. She wrote and recorded a song entitled “Dah Dee Dah (Sexy Thing)”, which appeared on the soundtrack to the 1997 blockbuster, Men in Black. The song was Keys’ first professional recording; it was never released as a single and her record contract with Columbia Records ended quickly. Keys later met Clive Davis, who signed her to Arista Records, which has since disbanded. Following her mentor Clive Davis to his newly-formed J Records label, she recorded the songs “Rock wit U” and “Rear View Mirror”, featured on the soundtracks to the films Shaft (2000) and Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001) respectively. Keys then released her debut album Songs in A Minor in 2001, the title being a reference to both her classical aspirations and to the fact that she wrote most of the songs at a very young age.

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Childhood Of Celebrities : Gwen Stefani

Gwen Stefani was born and raised in Fullerton, California, and grew up in a Roman Catholic household. Her mother named her Gwen after a stewardess in the 1968 novel Airport, and her middle name, Renée, comes from The Four Tops’ 1968 cover of The Left Bank’s 1966 hit song “Walk Away Renée”. Her father Dennis Stefani is Italian American and works as a Yamaha marketing executive. Her mother Patti Flynn is of Irish and Scottish descent and worked as an accountant before becoming a homemaker. Gwen’s parents were fans of folk music and presented music by Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris to her. Gwen is the second oldest of four children; she has a younger sister Jill, a younger brother Todd, and an older brother Eric. Eric was the keyboardist for No Doubt, but left the band to pursue a career in animation on The Simpsons.

Many of the women in Gwen’s family were seamstresses, and much of her clothing was made by her or her mother. As a child, Stefani’s musical interests consisted of musicals such as The Sound of Music and Evita. After making a demo tape for her father, she was encouraged not to take music lessons to train her “loopy, unpredictable” voice. Stefani’s first on-stage performance came during a talent show at Loara High School, where she sang “I Have Confidence” from The Sound of Music in a self-made tweed dress inspired by one from the film. Stefani was on the swim team at Loara, and she worked scrubbing floors at a Dairy Queen and later at the makeup counter of a department store. After graduating from high school in 1987, she began attending California State University, Fullerton.

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