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Avril Lavigne

Avril Ramona Lavigne (born September 27, 1984) is a Canadian pop singer, Juno Award-winning singer-songwriter and occasional actress. She was originally known for her "skater punk" persona, but has since shed that image in favour of a more sophisticated and feminine style. Her two albums, Let Go (2002) and Under My Skin (2004), have topped charts in several countries.

Although her surname is of French origin, she does not speak French and her name is pronounced in an anglicized way, somewhat as [l?'vi?n] ("La-veen"), rather than [la'vi??]. Lavigne in French means the vine or the vineyard. Her first name, Avril, is French for April, but is also pronounced in an anglicized way as ['ævr?l] ("Av-ril"), rather than [a'vril].

Lavigne is featured in Maxim Magazine's Girls of Maxim gallery. In 2006, she was included in Canadian Business Magazine's ranking of the most powerful Canucks in Hollywood, grabbing the seventh position.

Avril was born in Belleville, Ontario, to Franco-Ontarian Roman Catholic parents John and Judy Lavigne. Avril's musical talent was first spotted at the age of two when her mother says Avril began singing along with her on church songs . At age five she moved with her family to Napanee, Ontario, Canada, where she sang in a church choir and taught herself to play the guitar.

She was discovered by her first professional manager, Cliff Fabri, while singing country covers at a Chapters bookstore in Kingston, Ontario. During a performance with the Lennox Community Theatre, Avril was spotted by local folksinger Steve Medd, who invited her to sing on his song Touch The Sky for his 1999 album Quinte Spirit. She also sang on Temple Of Life and Two Rivers for his follow up album, My Window To You, in 2000.

At the age of sixteen she was signed by Ken Krongard, the artists-and-repertoire (A&R) representative of Arista Records, who invited the head of Arista, Antonio "L.A." Reid, to hear her sing in a New York City studio. She then completed work on her first album.

Let Go (2002)After attempts to capture Lavigne's sound, Arista A&R head Josh Saurbin reached out to producer-songwriters Curt Frasca and Sabelle Breer (Madonna, Ryan Cabrera, Stacie Orrico) to help with the album.[citation needed] Lavigne eventually moved to Los Angeles, California and co-wrote with Cliff Magness and the songwriting team The Matrix. They have also worked with singers such as Sheena Easton and Christina Aguilera. Lavigne described her first release Let Go as an album with "a couple of rock songs on it" and has voiced a desire to write more rock-oriented songs in the future.[citation needed] Let Go was released in June 2002 in the United States, reaching number two and number one in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. This made Lavigne the youngest female soloist to have a number-one album in the UK up until that time.[citation needed] The RIAA certified it four times platinum less than six months later, and it had sold fifteen million copies worldwide as of December 2004.[citation needed]

Four singles from the album were released, all of them number-one hits in Canada. "Complicated" went to number one in Australia while reaching number two on the U.S. Hot 100, and it was also one of the best-selling Canadian singles of 2002. "Sk8er Boi" reached the top ten in the U.S. and Australia, "I'm with You" reached the top ten in the UK, and "Losing Grip" reached the top ten in Taiwan, and the top twenty in Chile. The media have often compared Lavigne to Alanis Morissette, who is also Canadian, as well as singer-songwriters such as Vanessa Carlton and Michelle Branch. These two emerged at about the same time and were popularly credited, with Lavigne, as part of a trend towards more creativity in the teen pop-music market.[citation needed]

Lavigne was named "Best New Artist" at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards, won four Juno Awards in 2003 (out of six nominations), a World Music Award for World's Best-Selling Canadian Singer, and was nominated for eight Grammy Awards.

Under My Skin (2004)Lavigne's second album Under My Skin was released in May 2004 in the U.S. It debuted at number one in the U.S., the UK, Germany, Japan, Australia, Canada, Spain, Ireland, Thailand, Korea and Hong Kong and sold more than 380,000 copies in U.S. in its first week. Lavigne wrote most of the album with Canadian singer-songwriter Chantal Kreviazuk, though some tracks were co-written by Ben Moody (formerly of Evanescence), Butch Walker of Marvelous 3, and her former lead guitarist Evan Taubenfeld. Kreviazuk's husband, Our Lady Peace front man Raine Maida, co-produced the album with Butch Walker and Don Gilmore.

Lead single "Don't Tell Me" went to number one in Argentina, the top five in the UK and Canada, and the top ten in Australia and Brazil. "My Happy Ending" reached the top ten in the U.S., and was her third-biggest hit there, but third single "Nobody's Home" did not make the top forty, though it reached the number one spot in Canada. The fourth single from the album, "He Wasn't", became her eighth consecutive number-one release in Canada since her debut single, but failed to make the UK top twenty and was not released in the U.S.

Lavigne won two World Music Awards in 2004 for World's Best Pop/Rock Artist and World's Best-Selling Canadian Artist. She received five Juno Award nominations in 2005, picking up three, including Fan Choice Award, Artist of the Year, and Pop Album of the Year. She also won the award for Favorite Female Singer at the eighteenth Annual Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards Lavigne co-wrote "Breakaway" with Matthew Gerard, which was recorded by Kelly Clarkson for the soundtrack to the film The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004). It was later included on Clarkson's second album Breakaway, being released as the album's first single. It peaked in the U.S. top ten and provided Clarkson with a substantial hit.

Lavigne performing in Geneva in June 2005.Her third album currently does not have a release date or a title, and it is being produced by Butch Walker.On July 10, 2006, Avril Lavigne answered a Q&A on her official website stating that her next CD will be released in the first half of next year, 2007. Avril says that her new album will contain love songs since 'that's what I'm feeling at the moment'.

Lavigne represented Canada at the closing ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. She performed her song, "Who Knows", during the eight minutes of the Vancouver 2010 portion.

Lavigne made her film debut in the animated film Over the Hedge, which is based on the comic strip of same name, alongside William Shatner, Bruce Willis, and Garry Shandling. She is also acting in the Richard Gere film The Flock, and her third project is Fast Food Nation, based on her favourite book.

Lavigne's band currently includes Devin Bronson (lead guitar), Craig Wood (rhythm guitar), and Charlie Moniz (bass). Former members include Matt Brann (drums, 2002 – 2005), Evan Taubenfeld (lead guitar, 2002 – 2004), Mark Spicoluk (bass, 2002) and Jesse Colburn (rhythm guitar, 2002 – 2003). In 2003, it was reported that Lavigne was romantically involved with Colburn.

Until 2003, Lavigne traveled with a bag full of about 30 neckties. Some of them she bought, and the rest she took from her father; some were sent to her by fans. Lavigne stopped wearing neckties in 2003, as she was horrified at the media references to her style overshadowing her music; and that she was starting a fashion trend.

The classification of Lavigne's style of music has been debated. All Music Guide and other reviewers consider her to be "teen pop" or "adult/alternative pop-rock". It is questioned whether or not her music style is punk. The reason for the confusion appears to be for her punk-like appearance early in her career. There have been several occasions where she has stated "I'm not punk," and other occasions where she stated she was a "skater punk."

It has been speculated that Lavigne is a vegetarian, but she has said many times that she is not. In the January 2003 issue of Seventeen magazine, she admitted to "snagging a bite of Matt's cheeseburgers every now and again." As a teenager she would hang out at the La Pizzeria restaurant in Napanee, Ontario. In her Under My Skin Bonez Documentary, she has stated that pizza with olive toppings is her favourite food, although she doesn't eat it too much because pizza is not good for her voice. Since her rise to fame, the restaurant has named a pizza after Avril that contains her favourite toppings and there is a guest book for fans to sign which is picked up by Avril when she visits friends and family in her home town.

Lavigne has a star tattooed on the inside of her left wrist that matches the style of the one used for her first album artwork. It was created at the same time as friend and musical associate Ben Moody's identical tattoo. In late 2004, she had a small pink heart-shaped tattoo featuring the letter 'D' applied to her right wrist — thought to be a reference to husband Deryck Whibley. She has also bought a house with him in Beverly Hills.

On July 15, 2006, Lavigne married long-time boyfriend Deryck Whibley, the lead singer of Sum 41. The couple were married in a mostly traditional ceremony at a private estate in the California coastal city of Montecito, located 87 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Lavigne wore a Vera Wang gown, carried white roses and was walked down the aisle by her father. There were about 110 guests in attendance, and helicopters carrying photographers could be seen circling in the sky above the ceremony, which took place outside.

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Jim Morrison 

American rock singer and rock lyric who achieved after his death a cult position among fans. Morrison wished to be accepted as a serious artist, and he published such collections of poetry as An American Prayer (1970) and The Lords and The New Creatures (1971). The song lyrics Morrison wrote for The Doors much reflected the tensions of the time – drug culture, the antiwar movement, avant-garde art. With his early death Morrison has been seen as a voluntary victim of the destructive forces in pop culture. However, he was not ignorat about the consequences of fame and his position as an idol. Morrison once confessed that "We're more interested in the dark side of life, the evil thing, the night time."

"This is the end, beautiful friend.
It hurts to set you free,
But you'll never follow me.
The end of laughter and soft lies.
The end of nights we tried to die.
This is the... end."

James Douglas Morrison was born in Melbourne, Florida, on December 8, 1943. His father, George “Steve” Morrison, was a U.S. Navy admiral, born in Georgia in 1920. In 1942, after graduating from the Naval Academy, he had married Clara (Clarke) Morrison, the daughter of a lawyer. In 1946 he returned from the Pacific and during the following years the family moved according to his numerous postings. Jim was their eldest son. When he began performing in public, he broke with his father and mother and never saw them again. George Morrison died in 2008.

Morrison was early interested in literature, he excelled at school, and he had an IQ of 149. Morrison studied theatre arts at the University of California. With his fellow student Ray Manzarek, keyboardist, John Densmore, drummer, and Robbie Kriger, guitarist, he formed a group which was in 1965 christened The Doors. They never added a bass player to their group. Its name was taken from Aldous Huxley's book on mescaline, The Doors of Perception, which quoted William Blake's poem ("If the doors of perception were cleansed / All things would appear infinite"). All the members of the band read much, not only Morrison. Their first album, The Doors (1967), mixed performances from Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weil's 'Alabama Song (Whisky Bar)' to Willie Dixon's 'Back Door Man'. It also included such Doors classics as 'Break on Through' (to the Other Side)' and 'The End'. The lyrics Morrison wrote in 1965 dominated the first two Doors albums. In July 1967 the band had its first single chart success with 'Light My Fire'.

Between childhood, boyhood,
-------------adolescence
& manhood (maturity) there
should be sharp lines drawn w/
Tests, deaths, feasts, rites
stories, songs & judgements
(from Wilderness , 1988)

Like in the late 1950s when the beatniks tried to unite jazz and poetry, Morrison found from music a channel to project his poetry, and add to it a theatrical aspect. Thus improvising and unpredictableness was a part of the band's show on stage. The mythical Lizard King, Morrison's alter ego, appeared first in the best-selling record Waiting for the Sun (1968) in a poem that was printed inside the record jacked. I was entitled 'The Celebration of the Lizard King'. Part of the lyrics were used in 'Not to Touch the Earth' and the complete 'Celebration' appeared on record Absolutely Live (1970).

Morrison's drinking, exhibitionistic performances, and drug-taking badly affected his singing and input at recordings. "Let's just say I was testing the bounds of reality," he confessed in 1969 in Los Angeles. "I was curious to see what would happen. That's all it was: just curiosity." In Miami in 1969 the audience thought it saw Jim's "snake" – he was charged with exposing himself on stage, in full view of 10.000 people. The police did not arrest him on the spot, for fear that it would cause a riot. Next year Morrison was sentenced 8 months' hard labor and a $500 fine for "profanity" and "indecent exposure", but he remained free while the sentence was appealed against. The Soft Parade (1969), which experimented with brass sections, was received with mixed emotions but it had a hit single, 'Touch me'.

After Miami everything changed and Morrison put his leather pants in closet. He grew a beard, started to take distance to his fans, and devote more time with projects outside the band. John Densmore has later told in an interview, that although he knew Jim well, there was so much about him that he could not find out. Possessed by his inner visions and urge to write and create music, Morrison also had troubles to explain his aims. He also felt that his time was running short: "O great creator of being, grant us one more hour / to perform our art and perfect our lives."

In April 1970 Morrison Hotel hit the lists in the U.S. and England. It was hailed as a major comeback. One song on it, 'Queen of the Highway', was dedicated Pamela Courson, his common-law wife, who called herself Pamela Morrison. Jim called Pamela his "cosmic mate". Morrison had also an affair with Linda Ashcroft from 1967 to 1971. With Patricia Kennealy, a rock critic, he had romance which started in 1969; supposedly they were joined in a Wiccan ceromony, known as a Handfasting. Morrison did not take the ritual seriously.

On his 27th birthday, Morrison made the recordings at Elektra's LA studio of his poetry, which later formed the basis of An American Prayer. The Doors played their last concert with Morrison in New Orleans. It was a disaster – Morrison smashed the microphone into the stage, threw the stand into the crowd and slumped down.

After finishing sessions for a new album, L.A. Woman, Morrison escaped to Paris, where he hoped to follow literary career. "See me change," he sang. He never came back from Paris. His first book, The Lords and the New Creatures, was published by Simon and Schuster in 1971. It went into paperback after selling 15.000 in hardback. An earlier book, An American Prayer, was privately printed in 1970, but not made widely available until 1978. On 3 July 1971 Morrison was found death in his bathtub. He had regurgitated a small amount of blood on the night of July 2, but claimed he felt fine. Recently had consulted a local doctor concerning a respitory problem.

Morrison was buried at Pére Lachaise cemetary in Paris, which houses remains of many famous artists, statesmen and legendaries from Edith Piaf to Oscar Wilde. In 1990 his graffitti-covered headstone was stolen. Pamela Courson Morrison, died in Hollywood of heroin overdose on April 25, 1974. In 1979 Francis Ford Coppola used The Doors' performance of 'The End' in his Vietnam War film, Apocalypse Now, and in 1991 director Oliver Stone made the film biography The Doors, starring Val Kilmer. Wilderness: The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison was published in 1989. It was compiled from the Morrison literary estate by his friends. 

Poems and other fiction and non-fiction by Jim Morrison:

• An American Prayer, 1970 (poems, privately printed)
• The Lords and the New Creatures, 1971 (poems) - Jumalat & Uudet olennot: runoja (suom. Jantso Jokelin, 2006)
• Wilderness: The Lost Writings of Jim Morrison, 1989
• The American Night: The Writings of Jim Morrison, vol.1, 1990
• The American Night: The Writings of Jim Morrison, vol. 2, 1991