title: Maurice White

text: The album's title track got to No. 16 on the Billboard Hot Soul Songs chart. Another single being "I Don't Wanna Lose Your Love" got to Nos. 4 & 13 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs and Hot Soul Songs charts respectively.


title: Maurice White

text: Following Charles Stepney's death in 1976, White took over producing the Emotions. During 1977 the group issued their follow up album entitled "Rejoice" The album reached No. 1 on the Billboard Top R&B Albums chart and No. 7 on the Billboard 200 chart. "Rejoice" has also been certified Platinum in the US by the RIAA.


title: Maurice White

text: With the LP came the single "Don't Ask My Neighbors" which got to the top ten on the Billboard R&B singles charts.


title: Maurice White

text: Another song called "Best of My Love" reached No. 1 on the Billboard Pop and R&B charts. "Best of My Love" won a Grammy for Best R&B Performance By a Duo or Group with Vocals, and an American Music Award for Favorite Soul/R&B Single. Best of My Love has also been certified Platinum in the US by the RIAA.


title: Maurice White

text: The Emotions went on to issue in 1978 their third Columbia album, "Sunbeam". The album rose to No. 12 on the Billboard Top Soul Albums chart and No. 40 on the Billboard 200 chart. An album cut called Smile reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot Soul Songs chart. "Sunbeam" has been certified Gold in the US by the RIAA. The Emotions also received an American Music Award nomination in 1978 for Favorite Soul/R&B Band, Duo or Group.


title: Maurice White

text: During 1979 Earth, Wind & Fire collaborated with the Emotions on the single "Boogie Wonderland". The song reached No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 2 on the Billboard Hot Soul Songs chart. Boogie Wonderland has also been certified Gold in the US by the RIAA. White produced the girl group's 1979 LP "Come into Our World" which was released on his own Columbia imprint ARC Records. The album rose to No. 35 on the Billboard Top Soul Albums chart. A song from the LP called What's the Name of Your Love? also rose to No. 30 in the Billboard Hot R&B Songs chart. White went on to be Grammy nominated in the category of Producer of the Year Non-Classical.


title: Maurice White

text: The Emotions went on to guest upon Earth, Wind & Fire's 2003 single "All in the Way". All in the Way rose to No. 13 on the Billboard Adult R&B Songs chart and No. 25 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary Songs chart. This track featured upon EWF's 2003 album "The Promise" which was also produced by Maurice White.


title: Maurice White

text: White also worked with several other famous recording artists. As such he played the drums on former Rotary Connection lead singer Minnie Riperton's 1970 debut album, "Come to My Garden". White went on to produce Ramsey Lewis' 1974 album "Sun Goddess". The album reached No. 1 on the "Billboard" Top Soul Albums chart and No. 12 on the "Billboard" Top Pop Albums chart. Sun Goddess has also been certified Gold in the US by the RIAA. He also produced with Charles Stepney Lewis' 1976 LP "Salongo". The album rose to Nos. 7 on the Billboard Jazz Albums & No. 17 on the Billboard Top Soul Albums charts.


title: Maurice White

text: White composed on Eumir Deodato's 1978 studio album Love Island. The album got to No. 20 on the Billboard Jazz Albums charts. White later served as the executive producer of the R&B band Pockets's album Take It On Up released in 1978 on Columbia. That album reached no. 22 on the "Billboard" Top R&B Albums chart. He then guested with Deniece Williams on Weather Report's 1978 album "Mr. Gone".


title: Maurice White

text: The album was issued on ARC Records, his vanity label at Columbia. Mr. Gone rose to No. 1 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart.


title: Maurice White

text: White went on to collaborate with Ramsey Lewis on his 1980 LP Routes and gospel artist Walter Hawkins on his 1980 Grammy nominated album "The Hawkins Family". Additionally he composed on Barry Manilow's 1980 album "Barry". That album was certified Platinum in the US by the RIAA He also appeared as a guest artist on the Tubes 1983 album "Outside Inside".


title: Maurice White

text: White produced Barbra Streisand on her 1984 album "Emotion". "Emotion" has been certified Platinum in the US by the RIAA. He also produced Ramsey Lewis on his 1985 album "Fantasy". The album reached No. 13 on the "Cashbox" Jazz Albums chart.


title: Maurice White

text: He went on to appear as a guest artist on Lee Ritenour's Grammy nominated 1986 album Earth Run. White later co-produced Pieces of a Dream's 1986 LP Joyride. The album reached No. 3 on the Billboard Traditional Jazz Albums chart and No. 18 on the Billboard Top Soul Albums chart.


title: Maurice White

text: White also produced Neil Diamond on his 1986 album "Headed for the Future". Headed for the Future has been certified Gold in the US by the RIAA. He worked as a producer with Atlantic Starr on the band's 1987 LP "All in the Name of Love". The album has been certified Platinum in the US by the RIAA. He then made a guest appearance on Cher's 1987 self-titled LP. The album has been certified Platinum in the US by the RIAA. As well he played percussion and coproduced Ramsey Lewis's 1987 album "Keys to the City". That album got to No. 22 on the "Billboard" Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart. White also produced El DeBarge on his 1992 LP In The Storm. The album got to No. 22 on the "Blues & Soul" Top UK Soul Albums chart.


title: Maurice White

text: White collaborated with the Japanese band Dreams Come True on two songs: "Wherever You Are" from their 1994 album "Delicious", and "Eternity", which appeared on the soundtrack for the 1994 animated film "The Swan Princess."


title: Maurice White

text: As well he produced Ramsey Lewis's 1993 album "Sky Islands". The album rose to No. 4 on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Albums chart and No. 6 on the "Billboard" Top Jazz Albums chart. He also appeared on Marcus Miller's 1993 album The Sun Don't Lie. The album rose to No. 10 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart.


title: Maurice White

text: White went on to produce the debut album of the jazz group Urban Knights released in 1995 by GRP Records. "Urban Knights I" featured Ramsey Lewis, percussionist Omar Hakim, trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, The Emotions and saxophonist Grover Washington, Jr. The album rose to No. 5 on the Billboard Jazz Albums charts.


title: Maurice White

text: Within that year he also appeared upon British soul group D'Influence's single Midnite. The song reached No. 17 on the UK R&B Singles chart.


title: Maurice White

text: During 1996 White also established his own record label entitled Kalimba Records. The Urban Knight's sophomore album "Urban Knights II" was again produced by Maurice. Urban Knights II featured appearances by Ramsey Lewis, Paulinho Da Costa, Verdine White, singer-songwriter and guitarist Jonathan Butler and jazz saxophonist Najee. The album got to No. 7 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart. White also arranged for the British girl group Cleopatra on their 1998 album "Comin' Atcha!". Comin' Atcha peaked at number 20 on the UK albums chart and was certified Silver in the UK by the BPI.


title: Maurice White

text: White also executively produced saxophonist Paul Taylor's 2000 LP Undercover. The album got to No. 6 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart. He also featured as a guest artist on Jazz saxophonist Kirk Whalum's 2003 album Into My Soul. As well White guested with French jazz band Nojazz on the tracks "Nobody Else" and "Kool" off their 2006 album "Have Fun". "Kool" marked the first time White collaborated with his friend Stevie Wonder.


title: Maurice White

text: White served as the executive producer of an EWF tribute album entitled "" which was released in March 2007 by Stax Records. The album rose to no. 28 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. On the LP were featured artists such as Chaka Khan, Musiq Soulchild, Mint Condition, Kirk Franklin and Angie Stone. Kirk Franklin's cover of September reached No. 17 on the Billboard Adult R&B Songs chart and No. 26 on the Billboard Hot Gospel Songs chart. As well Dwele's remake of "That's The Way Of The World" and Meshell Ndegeocello's cover of "Fantasy" were both Grammy nominated for Best Urban/Alternative Performance.


title: Maurice White

text: White executively produced jazz musician Brian Culbertson's album "Bringing Back The Funk" which was released in 2008 on GRP Records. Bringing Back the Funk rose to No. 3 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart and No. 18 on the Top R&B/Hip Hop Albums chart. The album featured guest artistes such as Ray Parker Jr., Sheldon Reynolds, Bootsy Collins, Larry Graham, Ledisi, Ronnie Laws, Musiq Soulchild, Bernie Worrell, Maceo Parker, Larry Dunn and Gerald Albright. A song from the album called Always Remember got to No. 1 on the Billboard Smooth Jazz Songs chart. Culbertson revealed in an interview that he is "...still in disbelief. I have learned so much from (Maurice) and he actually said that he learned a lot from me. It was incredible to work with him."


title: Maurice White

text: During 1985, White released a self titled solo album on Columbia. Robin Denselow of The Guardian called the album a "lush collection of self produced dance tracks, and the occasional ballad, with synths and drum programming immaculately in place, and the vocals as classy as ever". J.D. Considine of Musician also said the "Given his status as Earth, Wind & Fire's Shining Star, it comes as no surprise that White's first solo project sounds a lot like classic EW&F: tight, focused and punchy. But while White remembers to sink a hook into every verse and chorus, the emphasis here is on subtlety and sophistication as he works his way from R&B basics, from the studio mechanics of 'Switch on Your Radio' to the modified doo wop of 'Stand By Me', with a sense of craft that makes slickness irrelevant". The album rose to number 12 on the Billboard Top Soul Albums chart. Appearing upon the LP was a cover of Ben E. King's "Stand by Me", with a guest appearance by jazz saxophonist Gerald Albright.


title: Maurice White

text: White's version of "Stand by Me" got to No. 6 on the Billboard Hot Soul Singles and No. 11 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary Songs chart.


title: Maurice White

text: Another song from the album called "I Need You" rose to No. 20 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary Songs chart and No. 30 on the Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart.


title: Maurice White

text: In 2019, an album of previously unreleased recordings, titled "Manifestation", was released. This album consists of selected tracks worked on by White and songwriter/producer Preston Glass over a period of nearly 30 years.


title: Maurice White

text: White wrote and produced songs for the feature films "Coming to America", "A Low Down Dirty Shame", and "Gatchaman OVA". He also composed music for the television series "Life Is Wild". During 2006 he worked with Gregory Hines' brother, Maurice upon the Broadway play "Hot Feet". White and Allee Willis also wrote several new songs for the play.


title: Maurice White

text: In the movie "BAADASSSSS!", the actor Khalil Kain portrayed a young Maurice White leading the early incarnation of Earth, Wind & Fire. Released at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, the film was based on Melvin Van Peebles' struggles to film and distribute the movie "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song." His son, Mario Van Peebles both directed the film and portrayed his father in the lead role. White also won an ASCAP Award as a composer of, "That's The Way Of The World", with it being a theme song of the sitcom "Hearts Afire".


title: Maurice White

text: White was a married father of three children: one daughter, Hemeya, and two sons, Kahbran and Eden. He owned two homes in California, one in Carmel Valley and the other a four-level condominium in Los Angeles. He was a fan of basketball and tennis. He went by the nickname of "Reese". His younger half-brother, Verdine White, an original member of Earth, Wind & Fire, still tours with the band as its bassist and a backing vocalist. Additionally, their brother Fred joined the band in 1974, when the band recorded "Devotion".


title: Maurice White

text: On the morning of February 4, 2016, White died in his sleep at his Los Angeles home from the effects of Parkinson's disease. He was 74 years old. His brother Verdine said, "My brother, hero and best friend Maurice White passed away peacefully last night in his sleep. While the world has lost another great musician and legend, our family asks that our privacy is respected as we start what will be a very difficult and life-changing transition in our lives. Thank you for your prayers and well-wishes."


title: Maurice White

text: Along with EW&F, Maurice White was posthumously bestowed with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual Grammy Awards ceremony on February 15, 2016, at the Staples Center, Los Angeles, California. At the ceremony Stevie Wonder and Pentatonix performed a rendition of "That's the Way of the World" in tribute to White.


title: Maurice White

text: Artists such as Stokley Williams, Richard Marx, Raphael Saadiq, Larry Blackmon, and Nate Dogg have also named White as an influence.


title: Maurice White

text: The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States. White received seven Grammys from 22 nominations.


title: Maurice White

text: On September 13, 2016, White's autobiography, "Maurice White: My Life With Earth, Wind & Fire", by Maurice White and Herb Powell, was released, including a foreword by Steve Harvey and an afterword by David Foster.


title: J. J. Cale

text: John Weldon "J. J." Cale (December 5, 1938 – July 26, 2013) was an American guitarist, singer, songwriter and sound engineer. Though he avoided the limelight, his influence as a musical artist has been acknowledged by figures such as Mark Knopfler, Neil Young, Waylon Jennings, and Eric Clapton, who described him as "one of the most important artists in the history of rock". He is one of the originators of the Tulsa sound, a loose genre drawing on blues, rockabilly, country, and jazz.


title: J. J. Cale

text: Cale was born on December 5, 1938, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and graduated from Tulsa Central High School in 1956. As well as learning to play the guitar he began studying the principles of sound engineering while still living with his parents in Tulsa, where he built himself a recording studio. After graduation he was drafted into military service, studying at the Air Force Air Training Command in Rantoul, Illinois. Cale recalled, "I didn't really want to carry a gun and do all that stuff so I joined the Air Force and what I did is I took technical training and that's kind of where I learned a little bit about electronics." Cale's knowledge of mixing and sound recording turned out to play an important role in creating the distinctive sound of his studio albums.


title: J. J. Cale

text: Along with a number of other young Tulsa musicians, Cale moved to Los Angeles in late 1964, where he found employment as a studio engineer as well as playing at bars and clubs. Cale first tasted success that year when singer Mel McDaniel scored a regional hit with Cale's composition "Lazy Me". He managed to land a regular gig at the increasingly popular Whisky a Go Go in March 1965. With Johnny Rivers already performing there regularly, club co-owner Elmer Valentine rechristened Cale as J.J. Cale to avoid confusion with the John Cale in the Velvet Underground. In 1966, while living in the city, he cut a demo single with Liberty Records of his compositions "After Midnight" with “Slow Motion” as the B side. He distributed copies of the single to his Tulsa musician friends living in Los Angeles, many of whom were successfully finding work as session musicians. “After Midnight” would go on to have long-term ramifications for Cale's career when Eric Clapton recorded the song and it became a Top 20 hit. Cale found little success as a recording artist. Not being able to make enough money as a studio engineer, he sold his guitar and returned to Tulsa in late 1967. There he joined a band with Tulsa musician Don White.


title: J. J. Cale

text: In 1970 it came to his attention that Eric Clapton had recorded a cover of "After Midnight" on his debut album. Cale, who was languishing in obscurity at the time, had no knowledge of Clapton's recording until it became a radio hit in 1970. He recalled to "Mojo" magazine that when he heard Clapton's version playing on his radio, "I was dirt poor, not making enough to eat and I wasn't a young man. I was in my thirties, so I was very happy. It was nice to make some money." Cale's version of "After Midnight" differs greatly from Clapton's frenetic version, which is itself based on Cale's own arrangement:


title: J. J. Cale

text: It was suggested to Cale that he should take advantage of this publicity and cut a record of his own. His first album, "Naturally", released on 25 October 1971, established his style, described by "Los Angeles Times" writer Richard Cromelin as a "unique hybrid of blues, folk and jazz, marked by relaxed grooves and Cale's fluid guitar and iconic vocals. His early use of drum machines and his unconventional mixes lend a distinctive and timeless quality to his work and set him apart from the pack of Americana roots music purists." His biggest U.S. hit single, "Crazy Mama", peaked at No. 22 on the U.S. "Billboard" Hot 100 chart in 1972. In the 2005 documentary film "To Tulsa and Back", Cale recounts the story of being offered the opportunity to appear on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" to promote the song, which would have moved it higher on the charts. Cale declined when told he could not bring his band to the recording and would be required to lip-sync the words.


title: J. J. Cale

text: "Really" was produced by Audie Ashworth, who would go on to produce Cale until 1983. Cale's second album further developed the "Tulsa sound" that he would become known for: a swampy mix of folk, jazz, shuffling country blues, and rock 'n' roll. Although his songs have a relaxed, casual feel, Cale, who often used drum machines and layered his vocals, carefully crafted his albums, explaining to Lydia Hutchinson in 2013, "I was an engineer, and I loved manipulating the sound. I love the technical side of recording. I had a recording studio back in the days when no one had a home studio. You had to rent a studio that belonged to a big conglomerate." Cale often acted as his own producer / engineer / session player. His vocals, sometimes whispery, would be buried in the mix. He attributed his unique sound to being a recording mixer and engineer, saying, "Because of all the technology now you can make music yourself and a lot of people are doing that now. I started out doing that a long time ago and I found when I did that I came up with a unique sound."


title: J. J. Cale

text: Although Cale would not have the success with his music that others would, the royalties from artists covering his songs would allow him to record and tour as it suited him. He scored another windfall when Lynyrd Skynyrd recorded "Call Me the Breeze" for their 1974 LP "Second Helping". As he put it in an interview with Russell Hall, "I knew if I became too well known, my life would change drastically. On the other hand, getting some money doesn't change things too much, except you no longer have to go to work."


title: J. J. Cale

text: His third album "Okie" contains some of Cale's most covered songs. In the same year of its release, Captain Beefheart recorded "I Got the Same Old Blues" (shortened to "Same Old Blues") for his "Bluejeans & Moonbeams" LP, one of the few covers to ever appear on a Beefheart album. The song would also be recorded by Eric Clapton, Bobby Bland, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bryan Ferry. "Cajun Moon" was recorded by Herbie Mann on his 1976 album "Surprises" with vocals by Cissy Houston, by Poco on their album "Cowboys & Englishmen", and by Randy Crawford on "Naked and True" (1995).


title: J. J. Cale

text: The 1976 album "Troubadour" includes "Cocaine," a song that would be a major hit for Eric Clapton the following year. In the 2004 documentary "To Tulsa and Back", Cale recalled, "I wrote 'Cocaine', and I'm a big fan of Mose Allison...So I had written the song in a Mose Allison bag, kind of cocktail jazz kind of swing...And Audie said, 'That's really a good song, John, but you oughta make that a little more rock and roll, a little more commercial.' I said, 'Great, man.' So I went back and recut it again as the thing you heard." The song's meaning is ambiguous, although Eric Clapton describes it as an anti-drug song. He has called the song "quite cleverly anti-cocaine", noting:


title: J. J. Cale

text: By the time he recorded "5" in 1979, Cale had also met singer and guitarist Christine Lakeland, and the LP marks her first appearance on his albums. In the 2005 documentary "To Tulsa and Back", Lakeland says they met backstage at a prison benefit show featuring B.B. King and Waylon Jennings. Cale and Lakeland would later marry. As William Ruhlmann observes in his AllMusic review of the album, "As Cale's influence on others expanded, he just continued to turn out the occasional album of bluesy, minor-key tunes. This one was even sparer than usual, with the artist handling bass as well as guitar on many tracks. Listened to today, it sounds so much like a Dire Straits album, it's scary." The release of "5" coincided with a notable live session with Leon Russell recorded at Russell's Paradise Studios in June 1979 in Los Angeles. The previously unseen footage features several tracks from "5", including "Sensitive Kind," "Lou-Easy-Ann," "Fate of a Fool," "Boilin' Pot," and "Don't Cry Sister." Lakeland also performs with Cale's band. While living in California in the late sixties, Cale worked in Russell's studio as an engineer. The footage was officially released in 2003 as "J.J. Cale featuring Leon Russell: In Session at the Paradise Studios".


title: J. J. Cale

text: Cale moved to California in 1980 and became a recluse, living in a trailer without a telephone. In 2013, he reflected, "…I knew what fame entailed. I tried to back off from that. I had seen some of the people I was working with forced to be careful because people wouldn't leave them alone… What I'm saying, basically, is I was trying to get the fortune without having the fame." "Shades", which continued Cale's tradition of giving his albums one word titles, was recorded in various studios in Nashville and Los Angeles. It boasts an impressive list of top shelf session musicians, including Hal Blaine and Carol Kaye of the Wrecking Crew, James Burton, Jim Keltner, Reggie Young, Glen D. Hardin, Ken Buttrey, and Leon Russell, among many others. 1982's "Grasshopper" was recorded in studios in Nashville and North Hollywood, and while a more polished production, it continues Cale's exploration into a variety of musical styles that would become known as Americana.


title: J. J. Cale

text: His 1983 album "#8" was poorly received, and he asked to be released from his contract with PolyGram. Lyrically speaking, with the exception of "Takin' Care of Business," the subject matter on #8 is unremittingly grim. The cynical "Money Talks" ("You'd be surprised the friends you can buy with small change…"), "Hard Times," "Unemployment," and "Livin' Here Too" deal with harsh economic woes and dissatisfaction with life in general, while the provocative "Reality" is about using drugs to escape many of the problems he chronicles on the album, singing "One toke of reefer, a little cocaine, one shot of morphine and things begin to change," and adding "When reality leaves, so do the blues." When later asked how he had spent the 1980s he replied: "Mowing the lawn and listening to Van Halen and rap."


title: J. J. Cale

text: After making a name for himself in the seventies as a songwriter, Cale's own recording career came to a halt in the mid-1980s. Although he scored a handful of minor hits, Cale was indifferent to publicity, preferring to avoid the spotlight, so his albums never sold in high numbers. In 1990 he explained in an interview, "In 1984 I was with a different record company, and it didn't seem to be working out too good, so I asked to get out of my contract, and that took a couple of years to shuffle the paper around. Then when I got through doin' that, I thought I'd take a little break from recording; maybe go in once or twice a year and record somethin' I'd written." "Travel-Log" was the first solo album Cale produced himself without long-time producer Audie Ashworth, although Ashworth co-wrote the opening track "Shanghaid" with Cale. While the album has a travel theme, with titles like "Tijuana" and "New Orleans," Cale insisted he did not set out to make a concept album, and only recognized it after he picked the songs:


title: J. J. Cale

text: 1992's "Number 10" was Cale's second LP for Silvertone. Compared to his albums in the 70s and 80s, he employed fewer session players for this album, yet still achieved his signature sound. Notoriously wary of the spotlight, Cale quietly went about his own business his way, delivering his own unique blend of musical styles augmented by his laid-back vocal delivery. Ironically, in an era of grunge and the "MTV Unplugged" trends, Cale became immersed in electronics and synthesizers. "I did the unplugged, live kind of thing in the '70's and the '80's," he told one interviewer. "I've gone to the other direction now that all that's become popular. Been there done that! They didn't call it unplugged in those days but that is what it was…There is a fascination about electronics…It is an art form in itself." 1994's "Closer to You" is best remembered for the change in sound from Cale's previous albums due to the prominence of synthesizers, with Cale employing the instrument on five of the twelve songs. Although the use of synthesizers may have seemed like a left turn for fans used to his laidback, rootsy sound, it was not new; Cale had used synthesizers on his 1976 "Troubadour" album. In an interview with "Vintage Guitar" in 2004, Cale acknowledged the dismay some fans felt, recalling:


title: J. J. Cale

text: Produced by Cale, "Guitar Man" differs from the albums he made in the seventies and early eighties in that while those records featured numerous top shelf session players, Cale provided the instrumentation on "Guitar Man" himself, augmented by wife Christine Lakeland on guitar and background vocals and drummer James Cruce on the opener "Death in the Wilderness." In his AllMusic review of the LP, Thom Owens writes, "Although he has recorded "Guitar Man" as a one-man band effort, it sounds remarkably relaxed and laid-back, like it was made with a seasoned bar band." In assessing the album, rock writer Brian Wise of "Rhythm Magazine" commented, "'Lowdown' is typical Cale shuffle, 'Days Go By' gives a jazzy feel to a song about smoking a certain substance while the traditional 'Old Blue' reprises a song that many might first have heard with The Byrds version during the Gram Parsons era." After "Guitar Man", Cale would take a second hiatus and not release another album for eight years.


title: J. J. Cale

text: Between 1996 and 2003, Cale released no new music but admiration for his work and musicianship only grew among his fans and admirers. In his 2003 biography "Shakey", Neil Young remarked, "Of all the players I ever heard, it's gotta be [Jimi] Hendrix and J. J. Cale who are the best electric guitar players." In the 2005 documentary "To Tulsa and Back: On Tour with J.J. Cale", Cale's guitar style is characterized by Eric Clapton as "really, really minimal", adding "it's all about finesse". Mark Knopfler was also effusive in his praise for the Oklahoma troubadour, but Cale's early 90s experimental synth-heavy output left him at odds with the music industry. 2004's "To Tulsa and Back" reunited him with long-time producer Audie Ashworth, as he recalled to Dan Forte:


title: J. J. Cale

text: The album returns to the style and sound Cale became famous for – a mix of laid-back shuffles, jazzy chords, and bluesy rock and roll with layered vocals – but it also embraces technology, resulting in a cleaner sound than on Cale's earlier albums. Lyrically, Cale makes a rare foray into political songwriting with "The Problem," an indictment of then-President George W. Bush with lines like, "The man in charge, he don't know what he's doing, he don't know the world has changed." "Stone River" is an understated protest song about the water crisis in the West.


title: J. J. Cale

text: In 2004, Eric Clapton held the Crossroads Guitar Festival, a three-day festival in Dallas, Texas. Among the performers was J. J. Cale, giving Clapton the opportunity to ask Cale to produce an album for him. The two ended up recording the album together, releasing it as "The Road to Escondido". A number of high-profile musicians also agreed to work on the album, including Billy Preston, Derek Trucks, Taj Mahal, Pino Palladino, John Mayer, Steve Jordan, and Doyle Bramhall II. In a coup, whether intended or not, the entire John Mayer Trio participated on this album in one capacity or another. Escondido is a city in San Diego County near Cale's home at the time located in the small, unincorporated town of Valley Center, California. Eric Clapton owned a mansion in Escondido in the 1980s and early '90s. The road referenced in the album's title is named Valley Center Road. The album won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album in 2008, with Cale writing 11 of the 14 tracks on the album, with two cuts, "Any Way the Wind Blows" and "Don't Cry Sister", being re-recordings of songs that Cale recorded previously in the 1970s. In a 2014 interview with NPR, Clapton spoke at length about Cale's influence on his music:


title: J. J. Cale

text: Clapton, who toured with Delaney & Bonnie in 1969, recalled in the 2005 documentary "To Tulsa and Back", "Delaney Bramlett is the one that was responsible to get me singing. He was the one who turned me on to the Tulsa community. Bramlett produced my first solo album and "After Midnight" was on it, and those [Tulsa] players played on it..."461 Ocean Boulevard" was my kind of homage to J.J."


title: J. J. Cale

text: A posthumous album of previously unreleased material album called "Stay Around", was released on April 26, 2019.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Ernest Gary Gygax ( ; July 27, 1938 – March 4, 2008) was an American game designer and author best known for co-creating the pioneering role-playing game "Dungeons & Dragons" ("D&D") with Dave Arneson.


title: Gary Gygax

text: In the 1960s, Gygax created an organization of wargaming clubs and founded the Gen Con gaming convention. In 1971, he helped develop "Chainmail", a miniatures wargame based on medieval warfare. He co-founded the company Tactical Studies Rules (TSR, Inc.) with childhood friend Don Kaye in 1973. The following year, he and Arneson created "D&D", which expanded on Gygax's "Chainmail" and included elements of the fantasy stories he loved as a child. In the same year, he founded "The Dragon", a magazine based around the new game. In 1977, Gygax began work on a more comprehensive version of the game, called "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons". Gygax designed numerous manuals for the game system, as well as several pre-packaged adventures called "modules" that gave a person running a "D&D" game (the "Dungeon Master") a rough script and ideas on how to run a particular gaming scenario. In 1983, he worked to license the "D&D" product line into the successful "D&D" cartoon series.


title: Gary Gygax

text: After leaving TSR in 1986 over issues with its new majority owner, Gygax continued to create role-playing game titles independently, beginning with the multi-genre "Dangerous Journeys" in 1992. He designed another gaming system called "Lejendary Adventure", released in 1999. In 2005, Gygax was involved in the "Castles & Crusades" role-playing game, which was conceived as a hybrid between the third edition of "D&D" and the original version of the game conceived by Gygax.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Gygax was married twice and had six children. In 2004, Gygax suffered two strokes and narrowly avoided a subsequent heart attack; he was then diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm and died in March 2008.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Gygax was born in Chicago, the son of Almina Emelie "Posey" (Burdick), and Swiss immigrant and former Chicago Symphony Orchestra violinist Ernst Gygax. He was named Ernest after his father, but he was commonly known as Gary, the middle name given to him by his mother after the actor Gary Cooper. The family lived on Kenmore Avenue, close enough to Wrigley Field that he could hear the roar of the crowds watching the Chicago Cubs play. At age 7, he became a member of a small group of friends who called themselves the "Kenmore Pirates". In 1946, after the Kenmore Pirates were involved in a fracas with another gang of boys, his father decided to move the family to Posey's family home in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where Posey's family had settled in the early 19th century, and where Gary's grandparents still lived.


title: Gary Gygax

text: In this new setting, Gygax soon made friends with several of his peers, including Don Kaye and Mary Jo Powell. During his childhood and teen years, he developed a love of games and an appreciation for fantasy and science fiction literature. When he was five, he played card games such as pinochle and then board games such as chess. At the age of ten, he and his friends played the sort of make-believe games that eventually came to be called "live action role-playing games" with one of them acting as a referee. His father introduced him to science fiction and fantasy through pulp novels. His interest in games, combined with an appreciation of history, eventually led Gygax to begin playing miniature war games in 1953 with his best friend Don Kaye. As teenagers Gygax and Kaye designed their own miniatures rules for toy soldiers with a large collection of and figures, where they used "ladyfingers" (small firecrackers) to simulate explosions.


title: Gary Gygax

text: By the time he reached his teens, Gygax had a voracious appetite for pulp fiction authors such as Robert Howard, Jack Vance, Fritz Leiber, H. P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Gygax was a mediocre student, and in 1956, a few months after his father died, he dropped out of high school in his junior year. He joined the Marines, but after being diagnosed with walking pneumonia, he received a medical discharge and moved back home with his mother. From there, he commuted to a job as a shipping clerk with Kemper Insurance Co. in Chicago. Shortly after his return, a friend introduced him to Avalon Hill's new wargame "Gettysburg." Gygax was soon obsessed with the game, often playing marathon sessions once or more a week. It was also from Avalon Hill that he ordered the first blank hex mapping sheets available, which he then employed to design his own games.


title: Gary Gygax

text: About the same time that he discovered "Gettysburg", his mother re-introduced him to Mary Jo Powell, who had left Lake Geneva as a child and had just returned. Gygax was smitten with the woman and, after a short courtship, persuaded her to marry him, despite the fact that he was only 19. This caused some friction with his best friend Don Kaye, who had also been wooing Mary Jo. Kaye refused to attend Gygax's wedding. Kaye and Gygax reconciled after the wedding.


title: Gary Gygax

text: The couple moved to Chicago where Gygax continued as a shipping clerk at Kemper Insurance. He found a job for Mary Jo there, but the company laid her off when she became pregnant with their first child. He also took anthropology classes at the University of Chicago.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Despite his commitments to his job, raising a family, school, and his political volunteerism, Gygax continued to play wargames. It reached the point that Mary Jo, pregnant with their second child, believed he was having an affair and confronted him in a friend's basement only to discover him and his friends sitting around a map-covered table.


title: Gary Gygax

text: In 1962, Gygax got a job as an insurance underwriter at Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. His family continued to grow, and after his third child was born, he decided to move his family back to Lake Geneva. Except for a few months he would spend in Clinton, Wisconsin, following his divorce, and his time in Hollywood while he was the head of TSR's entertainment division, Lake Geneva would be his home for the rest of his life.


title: Gary Gygax

text: By 1966, Gygax was active in the wargame hobby world and was writing many magazine articles on the subject. Gygax learned about H. G. Wells' "Little Wars" book for play of military miniatures wargames and Fletcher Pratt's "Naval Wargame" book. Gygax later looked for innovative ways to generate random numbers, and he used not only common six-sided dice, but dice of all five Platonic solid shapes, which he discovered in a school supply catalog.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Gygax cited his influences as Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, Jack Vance, Fletcher Pratt, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, A. Merritt, and H. P. Lovecraft.


title: Gary Gygax

text: In 1967, Gygax co-founded the International Federation of Wargamers (IFW) with Bill Speer and Scott Duncan. The IFW grew rapidly, particularly by assimilating several pre-existing wargaming clubs, and aimed to promote interest in wargames of all periods. It provided a forum for wargamers, via its newsletters and societies, which enabled them to form local groups and share rules. In 1967, Gygax organized a 20-person gaming meet in the basement of his home; this event would later be referred to as "Gen Con 0". In 1968, Gygax rented Lake Geneva's vine-covered Horticultural Hall for () to hold the first Lake Geneva Convention, also known as the Gen Con gaming convention for short. Gen Con is now one of North America's largest annual hobby-game gatherings. Gygax met Dave Arneson, the future co-creator of "D&D", at the second Gen Con in August 1969.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Together with Don Kaye, Mike Reese, and Leon Tucker, Gygax created a military miniatures society called Lake Geneva Tactical Studies Association (LGTSA) in 1970, with its first headquarters in Gygax's basement. Shortly thereafter in 1970, Robert Kuntz and Gygax founded the Castle & Crusade Society of the IFW.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Late in October 1970, Gygax lost his job at the insurance company after almost nine years. Unemployed and now with a family of five children—Ernest ("Ernie"), Lucion ("Luke"), Heidi, Cindy, and Elise—he tried to use his enthusiasm for games to make a living by designing board games for commercial sale. This clearly proved to be unsustainable when he only grossed $882 in 1971 (). He began cobbling shoes in his basement, which provided him with a steady income and gave him more time for pursuing his interest in game development. In 1971, he began doing some editing work at Guidon Games, a publisher of wargames, for which he produced the board games "Alexander the Great" and "". Early that same year, Gygax published "Chainmail", a miniatures wargame that simulated medieval-era tactical combat, which he had originally written with hobby-shop owner Jeff Perren. The "Chainmail" medieval miniatures rules were originally published in the Castle & Crusade Society's fanzine "The Domesday Book". Guidon Games hired Gygax to produce a "Wargaming with Miniatures" series of games, and a new edition of "Chainmail" (1971) was the first book in the series. The first edition of "Chainmail" included a fantasy supplement to the rules. These comprised a system for warriors, wizards, and various monsters of non-human races drawn from the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and other sources. For a small publisher like Guidon Games, "Chainmail" was relatively successful, selling 100 copies per month.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Gygax also collaborated on Tractics with Mike Reese & Leon Tucker, his contribution being the change to a 20-sided spinner or a coffee can with 20 numbered poker chips (or eventually 20-sided dice) to decide combat resolutions instead of the standard 6-sided dice. He also collaborated with Dave Arneson on the Napoleonic naval wargame "Don't Give Up the Ship!"


title: Gary Gygax

text: Dave Arneson adapted the "Chainmail" rules for his fantasy "Blackmoor" campaign. In the fall of 1972, around late November, Dave Arneson and friend David Megarry, inventor of the Dungeon! board game, traveled to Lake Geneva to showcase their respective games to Gygax, in his role as a representative of Guidon Games. Gygax saw potential in both games, and was especially excited by Arneson's role-playing game. Gygax and Arneson immediately started to collaborate on creating "The Fantasy Game", the role-playing game which would evolve into "Dungeons & Dragons".


title: Gary Gygax

text: Two weeks after Arneson's "Blackmoor" demonstration, Gygax had produced a 50-page set of rules, and was ready to try it on his two oldest children, Ernie and Elise, in a setting he called "Greyhawk". This group rapidly expanded to include Don Kaye, Rob Kuntz and eventually a large circle of players. Gygax sent the 50 pages of rules to his wargaming contacts and asked them to playtest the new game. Gygax and Arneson continued to trade notes about their respective campaigns. The final draft, however contained changes that were not vetted by Arneson, and Gygax's vision differed on some rule details Arneson had preferred.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Based on the feedback he received, Gygax created a 150-page revision of the rules by mid-1973. Several aspects of the system governing magic in the game were inspired by "The Dying Earth" stories of fantasy author Jack Vance (notably the fact that "magic-users" in the game forget the spells that they have learned immediately upon casting them, and must re-study them in order to cast them again), and the system as a whole drew upon the work of authors such as Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague de Camp, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, Poul Anderson, Tolkien, Bram Stoker, and others. He asked Guidon Games to publish it, but the 3-volume rule set in a labeled box was beyond the scope of the small publisher. Gygax attempted to pitch the game to Avalon Hill, but the largest company in wargaming did not understand the new concept of role-playing, and turned down his offer.


title: Gary Gygax

text: By 1974, Gygax's Greyhawk group, which had started off with himself, Ernie Gygax, Don Kaye, Rob Kuntz, and Terry Kuntz, had grown to over 20 people, with Rob Kuntz becoming the co-dungeon-master so that each of them could referee groups of only a dozen players.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Gygax left Guidon Games in 1973 and in October, with Don Kaye as a partner, founded Tactical Studies Rules, later known as TSR, Inc. The two men each invested in the venture—Kaye borrowed his share on his life insurance policy—to print a thousand copies of the "Dungeons & Dragons" boxed set. They also tried to raise money by immediately publishing a set of wargame rules called "Cavaliers and Roundheads", but sales were poor; when the printing costs for the thousand copies of "Dungeons & Dragons" rose from $2000 to $2500, they still did not have enough capital to publish it. Worried that the other playtesters and wargamers now familiar with Gygax's rules would bring a similar product to the market first, the two accepted an offer in December 1973 by game playing acquaintance Brian Blume to invest $2,000 in TSR to become an equal one-third partner. (Gygax accepted Blume's offer right away. Kaye was less enthusiastic, and after a week to consider the offer, he questioned Blume closely before acquiescing.) Blume's investment finally brought the financing that enabled them to publish "D&D". Gygax worked on rules for more miniatures and tabletop battle games including "Classic Warfare" (Ancient Period: 1500 BC to 500 AD), and "Warriors of Mars".


title: Gary Gygax

text: The first commercial version of "D&D" was released by TSR in January 1974 as a boxed set. Sales of the hand-assembled print run of 1,000 copies, put together in Gygax's home, sold out in less than a year. (In 2018, a first printing of the boxed set sold at auction for more than $20,000.)


title: Gary Gygax

text: At the end of 1974, with sales of D&D skyrocketing, the future looked bright for Gygax and Kaye, who were only 36. However, in January 1975, Kaye unexpectedly died of a heart attack. He had not made any specific provision in his will regarding his one-third share of the company, simply leaving his entire estate to his wife Donna. Although she had worked briefly for TSR as an accountant, she had not shared her husband's enthusiasm for gaming, and made it clear that she would not be having anything to do with managing the company. Gygax characterized her as "less than personable... After Don died she dumped all the Tactical Studies Rules materials off on my front porch. It would have been impossible to manage a business with her involved as a partner." After Kaye's death, TSR was forced to relocate from Kaye's dining room to Gygax's basement. In July 1975, Gygax and Blume reorganized their company from a partnership to a corporation called TSR Hobbies. Gygax owned 150 shares, Blume owned the other 100 shares, and both had the option to buy up to 700 shares at any time in the future. But TSR Hobbies had nothing to publish—D&D was still owned by the three-way partnership of TSR, and neither Gygax nor Blume had the money to buy out the shares owned by Kaye's wife. Blume persuaded a reluctant Gygax to allow his father, Melvin Blume, to buy Donna's shares, and those were converted to 200 shares in TSR Hobbies. In addition, Brian bought another 140 shares. These purchases reduced Gygax from the majority shareholder in control of the company to minority shareholder; he effectively became the Blumes' employee.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Gygax wrote the supplements "Greyhawk", "Eldritch Wizardry", and "Swords & Spells" for the original "D&D game". With Brian Blume, Gygax also designed the wild west-oriented role-playing game "Boot Hill". In the same year, Gygax created the magazine "The Strategic Review" with himself as editor. But wanting a more industry-wide periodical, he hired Tim Kask as TSR's first employee to change this magazine to the fantasy periodical "The Dragon", with Gygax as writer, columnist, and publisher (from 1978 to 1981). "The Dragon" debuted in June 1976, and Gygax commented on its success years later: "When I decided that "The Strategic Review" was not the right vehicle, hired Tim Kask as a magazine editor for Tactical Studies Rules, and named the new publication he was to produce "The Dragon", I thought we would eventually have a great periodical to serve gaming enthusiasts worldwide ... At no time did I ever contemplate so great a success or so long a lifespan."


title: Gary Gygax

text: In 1976, TSR moved out of Gygax's house into its first professional home, known as "The Dungeon Hobby Shop". Dave Arneson was hired as part of the creative staff, but was let go after only ten months, another sign that Gygax and Arneson still had creative differences over D&D.


title: Gary Gygax

text: The "Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set", released in 1977, was an introductory version of the original "D&D" geared towards new players and edited by J. Eric Holmes. In the same year, TSR Hobbies released a completely new and complex version of "D&D", "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" ("AD&D"). The "Monster Manual", released later that year, became the first supplemental rule book of the new system, and many more followed. The "AD&D" rules were not fully compatible with those of the "D&D Basic Set" and as a result, "D&D" and "AD&D" became distinct product lines. Splitting the game lines created a further rift between Gygax and Arneson; although Arneson received a 10% royalty on sales of all "D&D" products, Gygax refused to pay him royalties on "AD&D" books, claiming it was a new and different property. In 1979, Arneson filed a lawsuit against TSR; it was eventually settled in March 1981 with the agreement that Arneson would receive a 2.5% royalty on all AD&D products, giving him a very comfortable six-figure annual income for the next decade.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Gygax wrote the "AD&D" hardcovers "Players Handbook", "Dungeon Masters Guide", "Monster Manual," and "Monster Manual II". Gygax also wrote or co-wrote numerous "AD&D" and basic "D&D" adventure modules, including "The Keep on the Borderlands", "Tomb of Horrors", "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks", "The Temple of Elemental Evil", "The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun", "Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure", "Isle of the Ape", and all seven of the modules later combined into "Queen of the Spiders". In 1980, Gygax's long-time campaign setting of Greyhawk was published in the form of the "World of Greyhawk Fantasy World Setting" folio, which was expanded in 1983 into the "World of Greyhawk Fantasy Game Setting" boxed set. Sales of the "D&D" game reached in 1980. Gygax also provided assistance on the "Gamma World" science fantasy role-playing game in 1981 and co-authored the "Gamma World" adventure "Legion of Gold".


title: Gary Gygax

text: In 1979, a Michigan State University student, James Dallas Egbert III, allegedly disappeared into the school's steam tunnels while playing a live-action version of "D&D". In fact, Egbert was discovered in Louisiana several weeks later, but negative mainstream media attention focused on "D&D" as the cause. In 1982, Patricia Pulling's son killed himself. Blaming "D&D" for her son's suicide, Pulling formed an organization named B.A.D.D. (Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons) to attack the game and the company that produced it. Gygax defended the game on a segment of "60 Minutes", which aired in 1985. When death threats started arriving at the TSR office, Gygax hired a bodyguard. Despite the negative publicity, or perhaps because of it, TSR's annual "D&D" sales increased in 1982 to , and in January 1983, "The New York Times" speculated that "D&D" might become "the great game of the 1980s" in the same manner that "Monopoly" was emblematic of the Great Depression.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Brian Blume persuaded Gygax to allow Brian's brother Kevin to purchase Melvin Blume's shares. This gave the Blume brothers a controlling interest, and by 1981, Gygax and the Blumes were increasingly at loggerheads over management of the company. Gygax's frustrations at work, and increased prosperity from his generous royalty cheques, brought a number of changes to his personal life. He and Mary Jo had been active members of the local Jehovah's Witnesses, but others in the congregation already felt uneasy about Gygax's smoking and drinking; his connection to the "satanic" game of D&D caused enough friction that the Gygaxes finally disassociated themselves from Jehovah's Witnesses. Mary Jo, continuing to resent the amount of time her husband spent "playing games", had begun to drink excessively, and the couple argued frequently. Gygax, who had started smoking marijuana when he lost his insurance job in 1970, started to use cocaine, and had a number of extramarital affairs. Finally in 1983, the two had an acrimonious divorce.


title: Gary Gygax

text: At the same time, the Blumes, wanting to get Gygax out of Lake Geneva so they could manage the company without his "interference", split TSR Hobbies into TSR, Inc., and TSR Entertainment, Inc. Gygax became the President of TSR Entertainment, Inc., and the Blumes sent him to Hollywood to develop TV and movie opportunities. He became co-producer of the licensed "D&D" cartoon series for CBS, which led its time slot for two years.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Gygax, newly single, took advantage of his time on the West Coast, renting an immense mansion, increasing his cocaine use, and spending time with several young starlets.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Because he was occupied with getting a movie off the ground in Hollywood, Gygax had to leave the day-to-day operations of TSR to Kevin and Brian Blume. In 1984, after months of negotiation, he reached an agreement with Orson Welles to star in a D&D movie, and John Boorman to act as producer and director. But almost at the same time, he received word that back in Lake Geneva, TSR had run into severe financial difficulties and Kevin Blume was shopping the company for .


title: Gary Gygax

text: Gygax immediately discarded his movie ambitions—his "D&D" movie would never be made—and flew back to Lake Geneva. There, he discovered to his shock that although industry leader TSR was grossing , it was barely breaking even; it was in fact in debt and teetering on the edge of insolvency. After investigating the reasons why, Gygax brought his findings to the five other company directors. (Since 1982, TSR, Inc. had conformed to the recommendations of the American Management Association by adding three "outside" directors to the board, increasing its size to six.) Gygax charged that the financial crisis was due to mismanagement by Kevin Blume: excess inventory, overstaffing, too many company cars, and some questionable (and expensive) projects such as dredging up a 19th century shipwreck. Gygax demanded that Kevin Blume be removed as company president, and the three outside directors agreed with him. However, the board still believed the financial problems were terminal and the company needed to be sold. In an effort to stay in control, in March 1985, Gygax exercised his 700-share stock option, giving him just over 50% control. He appointed himself president and CEO, and rather than selling the company, he took steps to produce new revenue-generating products. To that end, he contacted Dave Arneson with a view to produce some Blackmoor material. He also bet heavily on a new AD&D book, "Unearthed Arcana", a compilation of material culled from "Dragon" magazine articles. And he quickly wrote a novel set in his Greyhawk setting, "Saga of Old City", featuring a protagonist called Gord the Rogue. In order to bring some financial stability to TSR, he hired a company manager, Lorraine Williams.


title: Gary Gygax

text: When "Unearthed Arcana" was released in July, Gygax's bet paid off, as the new book sold 90,000 copies in the first month. His novel also sold well, and he immediately published a sequel, "Artifact of Evil". The financial crisis had been averted, but Gygax had paved the way for his own downfall. In October 1985, the new manager, Lorraine Williams, revealed that she had purchased all of the shares of Kevin and Brian Blume—after Brian had triggered his own 700-share option. Williams was now the majority shareholder, and replaced Gygax as president and CEO. She also made it clear that Gygax would be making no further creative contributions to TSR. Several of his projects were immediately shelved and never published. Gygax took TSR to court in a bid to block the Blumes' sale of their shares to Williams, but he lost.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Sales of "D&D" reached in 1985, but Gygax, seeing his future at TSR as untenable, resigned all positions with TSR, Inc. in October 1986, and settled his disputes with TSR in December 1986. By the terms of his settlement with TSR, Gygax kept the rights to Gord the Rogue as well as all "D&D" characters whose names were anagrams or plays on his own name (for example, Yrag and Zagyg). However, he lost the rights to all his other work, including the "World of Greyhawk" and the names of all the characters he had ever used in TSR material, such as Mordenkainen, Robilar, and Tenser.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Immediately after leaving TSR, Gygax was approached by a wargaming acquaintance, Forrest Baker, who had done some consulting work for TSR in 1983 and 1984. Gygax, who was tired of company management, was simply looking for some way to market more of his Gord the Rogue novels, but Baker had a vision for a new gaming company. He promised that he would handle the business end, while Gygax would handle the creative projects. Baker also guaranteed that, using Gygax's name, he would be able to bring in one to two million dollars of investment. Gygax decided this was a good opportunity, and in October 1986, New Infinities Productions, Inc. (NIPI) was publicly announced. To help him with the creative work, Gygax poached Frank Mentzer and "Dragon" magazine editor Kim Mohan from TSR. But before a single product was released, Forrest Baker left NIPI when his promised outside investment of one to two million dollars failed to materialize.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Against his will, Gygax was back in charge again; he immediately looked for a quick product to get NIPI off the ground. He had retained the rights to Gord the Rogue as part of his severance agreement with TSR, so he licensed Greyhawk from TSR and started writing new novels beginning with "Sea of Death" (1987); sales were brisk, and Gygax's Gord the Rogue novels ended up keeping New Infinities in business.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Gygax brought in Don Turnbull from Games Workshop to manage the company, then worked with Mohan and Mentzer on a science fiction-themed RPG, "Cyborg Commando", which was published in 1987. However, sales of the new game were not brisk: the game received overwhelmingly negative reception. NIPI was still dependent on Gord the Rogue.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Mentzer and Mohan also wrote a series of generic RPG adventures called "Gary Gygax Presents Fantasy Master". They also began working on a third line of products, which began with an adventure written by Mentzer called "The Convert" (1987); Mentzer had written the adventure as an RPGA tournament for "D&D", but TSR was not interested in publishing it. Mentzer got verbal permission to publish it with New Infinities, but since the permission was not in writing TSR filed an injunction to prevent the adventure's sale, although the injunction was later lifted. The legal costs further drained NIPI of capital.


title: Gary Gygax

text: During all of this drama, Gygax became a father again. Over the past year, he had formed a romantic relationship with Gail Carpenter, his former assistant at TSR. In November 1986, she gave birth to Gygax's sixth child, Alex. Biographer Michael Witwer believes the birth of Alex forced Gygax to reconsider the equation of work, gaming and family that, up until this time, had been dominated by work and gaming. "Gary, keenly aware that he had made mistakes as a father and husband in the past, was determined not to make them again ... Gary was also a realist, and knew what good fatherhood would demand, especially at his age." On August 15, 1987, on what would have been his parents' 50th wedding anniversary, Gygax married Gail Carpenter.


title: Gary Gygax

text: During 1987 and 1988, Gygax worked with Flint Dille on the "Sagard the Barbarian" books, as well as "Role-Playing Mastery" and its sequel, "Master of the Game". He also wrote two more Gord the Rogue novels, "City of Hawks" (1987), and "Come Endless Darkness" (1988). However, by 1988, TSR had rewritten the setting for the world of Greyhawk, and Gygax was not happy with the new direction in which TSR was taking "his" creation. In a literary declaration that his old world was dead, and wanting to make a clean break with all things Greyhawk, Gygax destroyed his version of Oerth in the final Gord the Rogue novel, "Dance of Demons".


title: Gary Gygax

text: With the Gord the Rogue novels finished, NIPI's main source of steady income dried up. The company needed a new product. Gygax announced in 1988 in a company newsletter that he and Rob Kuntz, his co-Dungeon Master during the early days of the Greyhawk campaign, were working as a team again. This time they would create a new multi-genre fantasy RPG called "Infinite Adventures", which would be supported by different gamebooks for different genres. This line would detail the Castle and City of Greyhawk as Gygax and Kuntz had originally envisioned them, now called "Castle Dunfalcon".


title: Gary Gygax

text: However, before work on this project could commence, NIPI ran out of money, was forced into bankruptcy, and was dissolved in 1989.


title: Gary Gygax

text: After NIPI folded, Gygax decided to create an entirely new RPG called "The Carpenter Project", one considerably more complex and "rule heavy" than his original and relatively simple "D&D" system, which had been encompassed by a mere 150 typewritten pages. He also wanted to create a horror setting for the new RPG called "Unhallowed". He began working on the RPG and the setting with the help of games designer Mike McCulley. Game Designers' Workshop became interested in publishing the new system, and it also drew the attention of JVC and NEC, who were looking for a new RPG system and setting to turn into a series of computer games. NEC and JVC were not interested in horror though, and work on the "Unhallowed" setting was shelved in favour of a fantasy setting called "Mythus". JVC also wanted a name change for the RPG, favoring "Dangerous Dimensions" over "The Carpenter Project". Work progressed favourably until March 1992, when TSR filed an injunction against "Dangerous Dimensions", claiming the name and initials were too similar to "Dungeons & Dragons". Gygax, with the approval of NEC and JVC, quickly changed the name to "Dangerous Journeys", and work on the new game continued.


title: Gary Gygax

text: The marketing strategy for "Dangerous Journeys: Mythus" was multi-pronged: in addition to the RPG and setting to be published by Game Designers' Workshop, and the "Mythus" computer game being prepared by NEC and JVC, there would also be a series of books based on the Mythus setting written by Gygax. So in addition to his work on the RPG and the "Mythus" setting, Gygax wrote three novels, released under publisher Penguin/Roc and later reprinted by Paizo Publishing: "The Anubis Murders", "The Samarkand Solution", and "Death in Delhi".


title: Gary Gygax

text: In late 1992, the "Dangerous Journeys" RPG was released by Game Designers' Workshop, but TSR immediately applied for an injunction against the entire "Dangerous Journeys" RPG and the "Mythus" setting, arguing that "Dangerous Journeys" was based on "D&D" and "AD&D". Although the injunction failed, TSR moved forward with litigation. Gygax believed the legal action was without merit and fuelled by Lorraine Williams' personal enmity, but NEC and JVC both withdrew from the project, killing the "Mythus" computer game. By 1994, the legal costs associated with many months of pretrial discovery had drained all of Gygax's resources; believing that TSR was also suffering, Gygax offered to settle. In the end, TSR paid Gygax for the complete rights to "Dangerous Journeys" and "Mythus". Although Gygax was well compensated for his years of work on "Dangerous Journeys" and "Mythus", TSR immediately and permanently shelved them both.


title: Gary Gygax

text: In 1995, Gygax began work on a new computer role-playing game called "Lejendary Adventures". In contrast to the rules-heavy "Dangerous Journeys", this new system was a return to simple and basic rules. Although he was not able to successfully release a "Lejendary Adventures" computer game, Gygax decided to instead publish it as a tabletop game.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Meanwhile, in 1996 the games industry was rocked by the news that TSR had run into insoluble financial problems and had been bought by Wizards of the Coast. While WotC was busy refocussing TSR's products, Christopher Clark of Inner City Games Designs approached Gygax in 1997 to suggest that they produce some adventures to sell in game stores while TSR was otherwise occupied; the result was a pair of fantasy adventures published by Inner City Games: "A Challenge of Arms" (1998) and "The Ritual of the Golden Eyes" (1999). Gygax introduced some investors to Clark's publication setup, and although the investors were not willing to fund publication of "Legendary Adventures", Clark and Gygax formed a partnership called Hekaforge Productions. Gygax was thus able to return to publish "Lejendary Adventures" in 1999. The game was published as a three-volume set: "The Lejendary Rules for All Players" (1999), "Lejend Master's Lore" (2000) and "Beasts of Lejend" (2000).


title: Gary Gygax

text: The new owner of TSR, WotC's Peter Adkison, clearly did not harbor any of Lorraine Williams' ill-will toward Gygax: Adkison purchased all of Gygax's residual rights to D&D and AD&D for a six-figure sum. Although Gygax did not write any new supplements or books for TSR or WotC, he did agree to write the preface to the 1998 adventure "Return to the Tomb of Horrors", a paean to Gygax's original AD&D adventure "Tomb of Horrors". He also returned to the pages of Dragon Magazine, writing the "Up on a Soapbox" column from Issue #268 (January 2000) to Issue #320 (June 2004).


title: Gary Gygax

text: Gygax continued to work on "Lejendary Adventures" which he believed was his best work. However, sales were below expectation.


title: Gary Gygax

text: On June 11, 2001, Stephen Chenault and Davis Chenault of Troll Lord Games announced that Gygax would be writing books for their company. Gygax's early work for Troll Lord included a series of hardcover books that eventually came to be called "Gygaxian Fantasy Worlds"; the first was "The Canting Crew" (2002), a look at the roguish underworld. He also wrote "World Builder" (2003) and "Living Fantasy" (2003), generic game design books usable in many different settings. After the first four books in the series, Gygax stepped down from writing and took on an advisory role, though the series logo still carried his name. Troll Lord also published a few adventures as a result of their partnership with Gygax, including "The Hermit" (2002) an adventure intended for d20 and also for "Lejendary Adventures".


title: Gary Gygax

text: By 2002, Gygax had given Christopher Clark of Hekaforge an encyclopaedic 72,000-word text describing the Lejendary Earth. Clark split the manuscript up into five books and expanded it, with each of the final books coming to about 128,000 words, giving Hekaforge a third Lejendary Adventures line to supplement the core rules and adventures. Hekaforge managed to publish the first two of those Lejendary Earth sourcebooks, "Gazetteer" (2002) and "Noble Kings and Great Lands" (2003), but by 2003 the small company was having financial difficulties. Clark had to ask Troll Lord Games to become an "angel" investor by publishing the three remaining "Lejendary Adventures" books.


title: Gary Gygax

text: On October 9, 2001, Necromancer Games announced that they would be publishing a d20 version of "Necropolis", an adventure originally planned by Gygax for New Infinities Productions and later printed in 1992 as a "Mythus" adventure by GDW; "Gary Gygax's Necropolis" was published a year later.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Gygax also performed voiceover narration for cartoons and video games. In 2000, he voiced his own cartoon self for an episode of Futurama, "Anthology of Interest I" that also included the voices of Al Gore, Stephen Hawking and Nichelle Nichols. Gygax also performed as a guest Dungeon Master in the Delera's Tomb quest series of the massively multiplayer online role-playing game "".


title: Gary Gygax

text: Since Wizards of the Coast, which had bought TSR in 1997, still owned the rights to the name "Greyhawk", Gygax changed the name of Castle Greyhawk to "Castle Zagyg", a reverse homophone of his own name, and also changed the name of the nearby city to "Yggsburgh", a play on his initials "E.G.G."


title: Gary Gygax

text: The scale of the project was enormous: By the time Gygax and Kuntz had stopped working on their original home campaign, the castle dungeons had encompassed 50 levels of cunningly complex passages with thousands of rooms and traps. This, plus plans for the city of Yggsburgh and encounter areas outside the castle and city, would clearly be too much to fit into the proposed 6 volumes. Gygax decided he would compress the castle dungeons into 13 levels, the size of his original Castle Greyhawk in 1973 by amalgamating the best of what could be gleaned from binders and boxes of old notes. However, neither Gygax nor Kuntz had kept careful or comprehensive plans. Because they had often made up details of play sessions on the spot, they usually just scribbled a quick map as they played, with cursory notes about monsters, treasures, and traps. These sketchy maps had contained just enough detail that the two could ensure their independent work would dovetail. All of these old notes now had to be deciphered, 25-year-old memories dredged up as to what had happened in each room, and a decision made whether to keep or discard each new piece. Recreating the city too would be a challenge. Although Gygax still had his old maps of the original city, all of his previously published work on the city was owned by WotC, so he would have to create most of the city from scratch while still maintaining the "look and feel" of his original.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Due to creative differences, Kuntz backed out of the project, but created an adventure module that would be published at the same time as Gygax's first book. Gygax continued to painstakingly put Castle Zagyg together on his own, but even this slow and laborious process came to a complete halt when Gygax suffered a serious stroke in April 2004 and then another one a few weeks later. Although he returned to his keyboard after a seven-month convalescence, his output was reduced from 14-hour work days to only one or two hours per day. Finally in 2005, "Castle Zagyg Part I: Yggsburgh", the first book in the six-book series, appeared. Later that year, Troll Lord Games also published "Castle Zagyg: Dark Chateau" (2005), the adventure module written for the Yggsburgh setting by Rob Kuntz. Jeff Talanian helped with the creation of the dungeon, eventually resulting in publication of the limited edition "CZ9: The East Marks Gazetteer" (2007).


title: Gary Gygax

text: That same year, Gygax was diagnosed with a potentially deadly abdominal aortic aneurysm. Doctors concurred that surgery was needed, but their estimates of success varied from 50% to 90%. With no firm medical consensus, Gygax came to believe that he would likely die on the operating table; he refused to consider surgery, although he realized that a rupture of the aneurysm – likely inevitable – would be fatal. In one concession to his condition, he switched from cigarettes, which he had smoked since high school, to cigars.


title: Gary Gygax

text: It wasn't until 2008 that Gygax was able to finish the second volume of six volumes, "Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works", which described details of the castle above ground. The next two volumes were supposed to detail the dungeons beneath Castle Zagyg. However, before they could be written, Gygax died in March 2008. Three months after his death, Gygax Games – a new company formed by Gary's widow, Gail – withdrew all of the Gygax licenses from Troll Lord, and also from Hekaforge.


title: Gary Gygax

text: From an early age, Gygax hunted and was a target-shooter with both bow and gun. He was also an avid gun collector, and at various times owned a variety of rifles, shotguns, and handguns.


title: Gary Gygax

text: As the "father of role-playing games", Gygax received many awards, honors, and tributes related to gaming:


title: Gary Gygax

text: In 2008 Gail Gygax, the widow of Gary Gygax, began the process to establish a memorial to her late husband in Lake Geneva. On March 28, 2011 the City Council of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, approved Gail Gygax's application for a site of memorial in Donian Park; however, the Gygax family was unable to raise the money at the time to complete the memorial during a 2012 funding campaign. The design of the monument is a stone castle look with medieval pole arms, a family crest and a dragon.


title: Gary Gygax

text: In 2014, with the approval of Gary's eldest son, Ernie, Epic Quest Publishing started a Kickstarter campaign to raise the initial funding for a museum dedicated to Gary featuring a gaming and event center and hall of fame for authors, artists, designers and game masters.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Stephen Colbert, an avid "D&D" gamer in his youth, dedicated the last part of the March 5, 2008, episode of "The Colbert Report" to Gygax.


title: Gary Gygax

text: In 2000, Gygax voiced his cartoon self for an episode of Futurama, "Anthology of Interest I" that also included the voices of Al Gore, Stephen Hawking, and Nichelle Nichols.


title: Gary Gygax

text: Numerous names in "D&D", such as Zagyg, Ring of Gaxx, and Gryrax, are anagrams or alterations of Gygax's name.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Marianne Deborah Williamson (born July 8, 1952) is an American author, spiritual leader, and political activist. She has written 14 books, including four "New York Times" number one bestsellers in the "Advice, How To, and Miscellaneous" category. The founder of Project Angel Food, a volunteer food delivery program that serves home-bound people with HIV/AIDS and life-threatening illnesses. She is also the co-founder of the Peace Alliance, a nonprofit education and advocacy organization supporting peacebuilding projects. She has frequently appeared on "The Oprah Winfrey Show."


title: Marianne Williamson

text: In 2014, Williamson unsuccessfully ran as an independent representing California's 33rd congressional district in the United States House of Representatives.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: On January 9, 2019, she announced her campaign for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 United States presidential election and suspended her campaign on January 10, 2020. She later endorsed Bernie Sanders at a rally in Austin, Texas on February 23, 2020. She was hired as a columnist for "Newsweek" shortly after the conclusion of the campaign.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson was born in Houston, Texas, in 1952. She was the youngest of three children of Samuel "Sam" Williamson, a World War II veteran and immigration lawyer, and Sophie Ann Kaplan, a homemaker and community volunteer.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson was raised upper-middle-class in conservative Judaism. Her family attended Congregation Beth Yeshurun. She learned about world religions and social justice at home, but first became interested in speaking from the pulpit on social matters when she saw her rabbi speak against the Vietnam War. Her family also traveled internationally during the summers when she was a child. She has said that it was through travel that she "had an experience, at a young age, that people are the same everywhere."


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson attended Houston ISD's Bellaire High School. After graduating, she spent two years studying theater and philosophy at Pomona College in Claremont, California, where she was a roommate of eventual film producer Lynda Obst. In 1973, Williamson—an active antiwar protester—dropped out of college and lived "a nomadic existence" during what she calls "her wasted decade." She moved to New Mexico, where she took classes at the University of New Mexico and lived in a geodesic dome with her boyfriend. The couple broke up a year later. Marianne then moved to Austin, Texas, where she took classes at the University of Texas. After leaving Texas, she went to New York City, intending to pursue a career as a cabaret singer, but got distracted by "bad boys and good dope." "Vanity Fair" wrote that Williamson "spent her twenties in a growing state of existential despair". In New York, Williamson suffered from deep depression following the end of a relationship. She has said that this experience gave rise to a desire to spend the rest of her life helping people.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: In 1976, Williamson (who was experiencing confusion about God and wondering why He allows so much pain in the world) was at a party in New York and picked up a copy of Helen Schucman's book A Course in Miracles from a coffee table. She dismissed the book because, being Jewish, she was put off by its Christian terminology. Williamson then moved to San Francisco. While there, she developed an interest in spirituality, metaphysics, and meditation. She began reading the "Course" "passionately" and doing its 365 daily exercises. She also reconciled it with her Jewishness; in her view, "A conversion to Christ is not a conversion to Christianity. It is a conversion to a conviction of the heart. The Messiah is not a person but a point of view".


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson said that the book was her "path out of hell," as she had been "mired in a series of unhappy love affairs, alcohol and drug abuse, a nervous breakdown, and endless sessions with therapists." She was captivated by the book's message on forgiveness, specifically the notion that one cannot find peace in life without forgiving others. Williamson said that made her realize "how many of my problems stemmed from my fear of other people."


title: Marianne Williamson

text: In 1979, Williamson returned to Houston, where she ran a metaphysical bookstore coffeeshop, sang Gershwin standards in a nightclub, got married and divorced "almost immediately," and underwent a "spiritual surrender".


title: Marianne Williamson

text: In 1983, Williamson had what she has called a "flash" to close the coffeeshop and move to Los Angeles. She said she felt the city would be welcoming to her because of its willingness to "start new conversations." She made the move with $1,000 in her pocket. She got an apartment in Hollywood. Her roommate was 17-year-old Laura Dern, who noted that Williamson "held prayer groups in our living room." Williamson got a job at the Philosophical Research Society. As part of their lecture series, she started speaking about "A Course in Miracles" as "a self-study program of spiritual psychotherapy." Her lectures were grounded in her belief that by consulting the "Course", every problem can be solved, and that miracles are possible through a change in perspective. According to Williamson, "All that a miracle is is a shift in perception from fear to love. It’s simply the notion that when your world view changes, your behavior changes".


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson's teachings stemmed from an inspirational message: "Divine love is the core and essence of every human mind." She saw this message as a remedy to misinterpretations of the Bible that, through an emphasis on sin and guilt, could lead to harm (e.g. slavery, depression, self-loathing). Initially, only a few people attended her lectures. But as word spread about "the young woman talking about a God who loves you, no matter what", she had to rent church space to accommodate the demand to see her. Four years later, she began lecturing monthly in New York. Eventually she was invited to speak throughout the U.S. and Europe. Williamson did not charge for her lectures, but had a "suggested donation" of $7 ($15 as of 2014) and a policy of not turning people away for lack of money.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson's style was called a "trendy amalgam of Christianity, Buddhism, pop psychology and 12-step recovery wisdom". The attraction of her teaching was said to have been "its focus on the power of the individual to conquer all without the help of stodgy institutions that are out of touch with modern generations." People were said to have been drawn to her relatability (given her struggles in her own life) and to her oratory. Williamson "filled a void left by the isolationism of established Christianity and Judaism, maintained an open-door policy with her teaching, but did not engage in actively evangelizing the "Course," saying that she believed doing so would devalue the spirit of the teaching".


title: Marianne Williamson

text: At the height of her popularity, in 1998, Williamson sold her $2.7 million home. She decided to stop teaching and join the ministry. She said, "I had a lot going on in my life. I just felt I had to leave. I had a baby." Williamson said that becoming a pastor was a way "to get dirt in her fingers again"—"to experience the day-to-day lives of hundreds of people"—and would be helpful in her work as a spiritual guide.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson became the "spiritual leader" for the Church of Today, a Unity Church in Warren, Michigan, where she had 2,300 congregants and 50,000 television viewers. She booked high-profile musical guests such as Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, expanded the bookstore, more than tripled declining church membership, increased the congregation's racial and sexual orientation diversity, brought the church out of mounting debt, and grew the church into one of the country's biggest Unity churches.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson has written 13 books. Seven have been on the "New York Times" bestseller list, with four reaching number one. More than three million copies have been sold.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson has said that she often wonders why "so many people in the richest country in the world have to constantly transcend material conditions that are so unnecessary."


title: Marianne Williamson

text: In 1987, during lunch with a close friend struggling with breast cancer, Williamson's friend expressed a need for help: "She said that for years she had been looking for someone to help her heal and now she needed someone to help her die." This request inspired Williamson to create the Center for Living.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: After David Geffen contributed $50,000, Williamson co-founded the organization with Louise Hay—a minister of the New Thought Church of Religious Science who claimed to have healed herself of cancer—as a refuge from, and to offer non-medical support for, people with "life-challenging illnesses." Williamson took no salary from the organization.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: The Center for Living began helping many patients afflicted with HIV/AIDS, particularly gay men, whom it welcomed and accepted when other places shunned them. The Center provided services such as house-cleaning, meditation, massage and community/psychological/emotional support throughout Los Angeles.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: In 1989, with another $50,000 from Geffen, Williamson opened another Center for Living in New York, but it was hampered by conflict between staff and the board over Williamson's management style, which an unnamed former associate described as "very controlling." There was also a rift because, while the Los Angeles Center welcomed Williamson's use of prayer in her teachings and the use of the word "God", the more secular New York Center rebuked it.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: A few months later, after two of her board members told "Vanity Fair" that she wanted "to be famous", Williamson deemed that she was being treated as "expendable" and purged the board of several members, including film director Mike Nichols, and the head of the New York Center. Some people believed Williamson was losing trust in several board members and preemptively fired them before they fired her. She disputed that, claiming that she intended to step down as president and wanted to give her successor a clean slate.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: The two coastal Centers ended up parting ways, with Nichols going on to create a rival AIDS support organization.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson's defenders said that, as the founder and president of the board, she was within her rights to want a staff aligned with her vision, and that it was "unfair to charge her with a mania for control simply because she didn't want her creation usurped by hostile rivals":


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson stepped down from the Center in the summer of 1992. The New York Center was able to remain open following a donation from Cher. Williamson gave the organization a $50,000 check and "graciously walked away." She remained an advisor to the organization.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: In 1989, Williamson launched Project Angel Food to support HIV/AIDS patients. The program was operated by The Centers for Living, but became so successful that its name recognition outgrew its parent company. By 1992 it had raised over $1.5 million and was delivering nearly 400 hot meals a day to home-bound AIDS patients in Los Angeles. Williamson deemed the demand for the organization's services to be a positive sign about HIV/AIDS:


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson resigned from Project Angel Food in March 1992 amid infighting, two months after the board fired executive director and gay activist Steve Schulte, with some speculating that Williamson—who had been open about her wanting him gone—was responsible for the firing. Schulte, who had been the Center's third executive director in five years, was well-liked among the employees because he lobbied for salary increases, but clashed with Williamson over the operational approach to running the organization. His firing led a majority of the remaining employees to call for Williamson's resignation, his reinstatement, the replacement of the entire board, and unionization if Williamson remained. Stephen Bennett, a consultant hired to assess the situation, determined that there were more paid staff on hand than needed, but with a union vote pending, Bennett refused to lay employees off. It was determined that the best option was for Williamson to resign.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson was torn about stepping down and "very opposed to the unionization of volunteer organizations."


title: Marianne Williamson

text: The organization made no announcement about Williamson's departure, and following her resignation, the employees decided not to unionize. The organization initially struggled in her absence, as she had been its most effective fundraiser. Within six months of her departure, the organization was restructured. Over 35 percent of the staff was laid off and counseling services were ceased to over 200 clients, which staff who had been loyal to her called "karmic payback for pushing Marianne out of the picture."


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Project Angel Food was able to remain operational after Williamson's departure. By 1998 it had over 1,500 volunteers and nearly 1,000 clients. As of 2018, with expanded food, nutrition and counseling services, it delivered 12,000 meals weekly throughout Los Angeles and had 55 employees, over 3,000 volunteers, nearly 1,500 clients, and revenue of nearly $4 million. In 30 years Project Angel Food has provided and delivered 12 million meals. Williamson remains a trustee of the organization.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson has helped thousands of gay men who "were told that they weren't loved by their family and friends, employers, politicians, hospitals. [...] It was more about that feeling of hope that she gave to all these people, and they all died." Calling herself a "midwife to the dying", she officiated at funerals, drove men to their doctors, and paid for patients' AIDS medication. Some who worked with her said that Williamson was "at the center" of the tragedy, assisting patients without regard.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: During her 2020 presidential campaign, Williamson was accused of telling gay men not to take medication for AIDS, of implying that they were "not positive enough" to counter the disease, of telling them that they "deserved" the disease, and of telling them to "pray the AIDS away". She has repeatedly denied these accusations. Most of the accusations stem from excerpts or paraphrases of her 1992 book "A Return to Love".


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Detractors accuse Williamson of being a grifter who "deluded dying men to concentrate on their spiritual well-being rather than on activism." Supporters say she is being maligned for a book written nearly 30 years ago, when the understanding of HIV/AIDS was in its infancy, which provided "solace to gay men when they were afflicted with paranoia, loneliness, and grief." She is said to have emphasized the healing power of prayer, believing that God can respond to prayers through medicine and science, and would lead prayers for a medical solution to AIDS.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson has said that at that time, when the medical industry had no cure or treatment for the disease—contracting it "was a death sentence"—and there was a "weird silence" from organized religion, gay men came to her because she was "talking about a God who loves you no matter what and miracles." She credits gay men in Los Angeles for her career, saying that they were living through a traumatic experience, dealing with the stress of guilt, shame, dying, and, in many cases, telling unsupportive family, and that they began coming to her lectures because, "I was talking every week about how love worked miracles and how, as long as we loved each other, everything was going to be ok."


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Her view of healing—of prayer and medicine—has been called unscientific, but also regarded as no different than the viewpoint of other religions.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: In 1998 Williamson co-founded the non-profit Global Renaissance Alliance (GSA) with "Conversations with God" author Neale Donald Walsch. The organization established a network of "citizen salons" to pray for national growth, peace and liberal causes.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: According to Williamson, the GSA sat in small groups, "Peace Circles", of fewer than 12 people every other week and prayed together to articulate a vision for what they want, rather than what others don't want.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: In 2004 the GSA's name was changed to The Peace Alliance and given a new mandate focused on grassroots education and advocacy organization with the intent of increasing U.S. government support for peace-building approaches to domestic and international conflicts. The Peace Alliance taught peace activists how to lobby their congressional representatives. Williamson said of the need for this work:


title: Marianne Williamson

text: The Peace Alliance seeks the establishment of a U.S. Department of Peace. In 2005 Williamson traveled to Washington to help Congressman Dennis Kucinich's effort to establish the department.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: The Alliance has raised over $100 million in funding for international peace-building. It has also helped get provisions of the Youth PROMISE Act, embedded in the Every Student Succeeds Act, passed into law. The California Democratic Party adopted key Peace Alliance priorities into its platform.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: In 2010 Williamson launched "Sister Giant", a series of conferences to "start a new conversation about transformational politics" and encourage more women to run for office: Williamson saw herself as a "cheerleader," supporting women who had never been politically involved, on the campaign level, but who might be considering, 'Why not me?'"


title: Marianne Williamson

text: In 2012, Yale University's Women’s Campaign School—an independent, nonpartisan, issue-neutral political campaign training and leadership program hosted at Yale Law School—partnered with the series, which focused on how to better address many social issues, including child poverty, campaign finance reform, and high incarceration rates.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: For several years until 2017, Williamson was a board member of Results Educational Fund (RESULTS), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity dedicated to finding long-term solutions to poverty by focusing on its root causes, and its sister organization, Results Inc., a 501(c)(4) "social welfare" organization that encourages "grassroots advocates to lobby their elected officials" and works "directly with Congress and other U.S. policymakers to shape and advance" anti-poverty policies. The organization has 100 U.S. local chapters and works in six other countries.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson continues to serve on a Council of Advisors, providing informal advice to the organizations.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: In the winter of 2018, Williamson began touring the United States as part of her "Love America Tour", two-hour sessions discussing her belief that "a revolution in consciousness paves the way to both personal and national renewal." She used the slogan "Ignite the Change" to propel the tour along with the message:


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson likened her message to that of Martin Luther King Jr. when he said, "Our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives."


title: Marianne Williamson

text: In 2014 Williamson ran as an Independent for California's 33rd congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. She was praised as a "tireless" campaigner but criticized for not articulating specifics in her plans. Her supporters deemed her lack of plans a strength and said she was not a "made-to-order candidate" who gave "lip service."


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Prominent elected and public officials endorsed her campaign, including Ben Cohen (of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream); former governors Jennifer Granholm and Jesse Ventura; former representatives Dennis Kucinich and Alan Grayson; and Van Jones. Alanis Morissette wrote and performed Williamson's campaign song, "Today".


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson campaigned on progressive issues such as campaign finance reform, women's reproductive rights and LGBTQ equality. She raised $2.4 million, of which she personally contributed 25 percent.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson finished fourth out of 18 candidates, with 14,335 votes or 13.2 percent of the vote (Republican Elan Carr finished first in the primary with 21.6 percent of the vote, but then lost the general election to the top vote-getting Democrat from the primary, Ted Lieu). Williamson said of the process and its outcome:


title: Marianne Williamson

text: On November 15, 2018, Williamson announced the formation of a presidential exploratory committee in a video in which she said that there was a "miracle in this country in 1776 and we need another one [that would require] a co-creative effort, an effort of love and a gift of love, to our country and hopefully to our world."


title: Marianne Williamson

text: On January 19, 2019, while visiting New Hampshire, Williamson said that she had "received enough positive energy to make me feel I should take the next step," and subsequently hired Brent Roske to lead her operation in Iowa.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Williamson, who has stated her disbelief in "traditional politics" and thinks that "they must be overridden," expressed her view that inspiration is underrepresented in political conversation and her thought that the foundations of American democracy were under threat, necessitating a "whole-person politics that speaks to emotions and psychology."


title: Marianne Williamson

text: On January 28, 2019, Williamson officially launched her presidential campaign, in front of 2,000 people in Los Angeles, and appointed Maurice Daniel––who served alongside Donna Brazile in Dick Gephardt's campaign for the Democratic nomination in 1988––as her national campaign manager, with her campaign committee, "Marianne Williamson for President", officially filed on February 4.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: On February 16, Williamson's campaign announced the appointment of former Congressman Paul Hodes, who represented New Hampshire's 2nd congressional district from 2007 to 2011, as New Hampshire state director and senior campaign advisor.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: As of May 1, Williamson had a campaign staff of 20 and, a week later, announced that she had received enough contributions from unique donors to enter the official primary debates. Her campaign had raised $1.5 million in the first quarter of 2019, during which it received donations from 46,663 unique individuals. Williamson subsequently met the polling criteria, with three unique polls at 1% from qualifying pollsters, on May 23.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: In June, Williamson confirmed that she moved to Des Moines, Iowa in advance of the 2020 caucuses. And in response to the Iowa Democratic Party's proposed creation of "virtual caucuses" in the 2020 race, Williamson's campaign announced that it would appoint 99 "Virtual Iowa Caucus Captains" (each assigned to a single county) to turn out supporters in both the virtual and in-person caucuses.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Later that month, Williamson participated in the first primary debate. She spoke for four minutes and 58 seconds, placing her 17th in speaking time of the 20 candidates. The "LA Times" wrote that Democratic voters were "confused" and "transfixed" by Williamson, who declared that her first act as president would be to call New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and say, "Girlfriend, you are so on", a reference to Ardern's emphasis on building a country that treats its children well.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: On July 30, Williamson participated in the second primary debate. She spoke for eight minutes and 52 seconds. Despite placing 19th in speaking time, she was the most Googled candidate in 49 of 50 states and received the fourth-most attention on Twitter. The spike in searches was prompted by her reference to the Flint water crisis (which she described as a "part of the dark underbelly of American society") and her assertion that President Trump was harnessing a "dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred" which she later described as racism, bigotry, antisemitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, and xenophobia propelled by social media.


title: Marianne Williamson

text: Her campaign complained that her name was often excluded from surveys. She also expressed frustration with the media establishment for not granting her the same level of respect Ben Carson or Herman Cain was afforded in previous elections, and for mocking and dismissing her candidacy:


title: Marianne Williamson

text: On the day of the third DNC debate, for which she did not qualify, Williamson did an interview with Eric Bolling and expressed further frustration with the media when she thought she was not being recorded. Among her unscripted comments was "what does it say that Fox News is nicer to me than the lefties are?"