Singer, songwriter, musician, political activist and actor, Willie       
Hugh Nelson once worked spinning country records at KVAN
radio in Vancouver, Washington.   

Harry Belafonte ( Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.)
(March 1, 1927 – April 25, 2023)

Belafonte was a Jamaican-American singer, actor and activist,
who popularized calypso music with international audiences
in the 1950s. His breakthrough album Calypso (1956) was the
first million-selling LP by a single artist.

Belafonte was best known for his recordings of "Day-O
(The Banana Boat Song)".

Ella Jane Fitzgerald (1917 – 1996)

On April 25, 1917, jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald is born in Newport
News, Virginia.

Fitzgerald’s most famous collaborations were with the vocal
quartet Bill Kenny & the Ink Spots, trumpeter Louis Armstrong,
the guitarist Joe Pass, and the bandleaders Count Basie and
Duke Ellington.

ROSS SIMPSON

On March 19, 2003, the United States, along with coalition
forces primarily from the United Kingdom, initiated war on
Iraq. Just after explosions began to rock Baghdad, Iraq’s
capital, U.S. President George W. Bush announced in a 
TV address (below), “At this hour, American and coalition 
forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm
Iraq, to free its people and to defend the world from grave 
danger.” President Bush and his  advisors built much of their 
case for war on the specious claim that Iraq, under dictator 
Saddam Hussein, possessed or was in the process of building 
weapons of mass destruction.

Rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Chuck Berry died on this day in
history, March 18, 2017, at age 90.

Born as Charles Edward Anderson Berry on Oct. 18,
1926 in St. Louis, Missouri, Chuck Berry was exposed
to music through his parents and his church.