Case analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 7

Case analysis - Essay Example apacity of other top flying English Premiership league clubs such as Chelsea, Manchester United, and Arsenal, who are the main competitors of Tottenham Hotspur. For this reason, the club plans to build a new stadium that can have a capacity of more than 36,500 so as to remain competitive as the other premier league clubs. Daniel Levy, the current and longtime chairman of Tottenham Hotspur football club, was therefore contemplating on building of the new stadium. He believed that by building new Stadium, Tottenham Hotspur will be able to accrue additional revenue that will make them have a voice in the transfer market for good players. The Tottenham Hotspur football club has a stadium whose capacity is small as compared to the stadium capacity of other top competitors such as Arsenal, Chelsea, and Manchester United. This makes them disadvantaged as they are not able to accrue enough revenue from the stadium attendance as compared to their competitors. This is evidenced because despite having 20 million of fans worldwide and 2.1 million of fans in the United Kingdom, few attendance revenues are always raised as the stadium has no capacity to accommodate all the fans who are willing to watch a Tottenham Hotspur match. For instance, when all the 36500 seats are occupied during the match day, 20,000 people are always on the waiting list for the tickets. Because of the limited stadium capacity, the club accrues less revenue as compared to the other top competitors. The fewer revenues accrued make the club less competitive in the transfer market as compared to the other clubs like Arsenal and Manchester United. For this reasons, the club will not be able to purchase good players who can make the club be top four in the league. Lack of top four positions in the league makes the club lose television broadcast revenue and champions league revenues. To increase the attendance revenues of the club, the club intends to build a new stadium that can increase the stadium

CAPE Industrial Services - case study Essay Example for Free

CAPE Industrial Services case study Essay 1.0 Introduction In response to the increased importance of services, numerous articles on issues related to the effective management of service operations have appeared in both academic and practitioner based publications (Chase and Hayes, 1991; Karmarker and Pitbladdo, 1995; Kellogg and Nie, 1995; Lovelock, 1992; Roth and Van Der Velde, 1991). Several of these articles present typologies of services and provide directions for improving quality, productivity and operating efficiency, however relatively little has been done to test the proposed ideas. In order to understand more of these various service management typologies, an actual business organisation that focuses on providing services will be observed and analysed. In the discussion, the design and strategies of the selected company in the Oil Industry service sector will be taken into account. Recommendations for improvement will also be provided at the end of the discussion. 2.0 Model of the Service The variety of the service sector makes it complicated to come up with useful generalisations concerning the management of service organisations. Therefore, a considerable amount of research has been focused on developing service classification schemes. For example, Judd (1964) classified services according to three categories: rented goods, owned goods and non-goods services. Similarly, Rathmell (1974) categorised services according to type of buyer, buyer motives, buying practices, type of seller, and degree of regulation. Even though these classifications show how some services are different from the others, they do not provide much useful insight into the design and management of service processes from an operational perspective. More recent classification schemes have explored the complex nature of service delivery systems with the goal of identifying differentiating characteristics, which affect quality and process improvement, as well as service design. For example, Shostack ( 1977) and Sasser, Olsen and Wyckoff (1978) developed the concept of product-service-package based on the tangible versus intangible nature of services. More recent researchers however believe in an integrated approach to service management. For example, Thomas (1978) argues that a large part of manufacturing experience is irrelevant to the management of service operations because the supply services are very different from that of manufacturing. Sullivan (1981) and Bowen and Cummings (1990) also advocate an integrated approach to service management and suggest that operations management researchers must include organisational behaviour and marketing constructs and techniques to address service operations problems adequately. The means of classifying service models are indeed varied. For this particular analysis though, the model proposed by Schmenner (1986), also known as the Service Process Matrix (SPM), will be used. The SPM expands the customer-contact model and categorises services on two dimensions. One is labour intensity, and the other is customer contact and service customisation. Schmenner (1986) proposed a two-by-two service process matrix that classifies services as service factory, service shop, mass service, and professional service. Under these models, CAPE Industrial Services can be classified under the Professional Service category. Professional service is described as the provision of services with high customer contact and or customisation and high labour intensity. Labour intensity on the other hand is defined as the ratio of the labour cost incurred to the value of the plant and equipment. A high labour intensity business involves relatively small plant and equipment investment relative to a considerable amount of worker time, effort, and cost. The second dimension in the classification scheme combines two distinct concepts: customer interaction and customisation. A service with a high level of interaction is one in which the customer can actively intervene in the service process. A service with high customisation will work to satisfy an individuals particular preferences. The joint measure has a high value when a service exhibits both a high level of interaction and a high level of customisation for the customers. In the selected business, CAPES Operations management has a high contact with customers who need to be kept informed of the service range being delivered to them. Thus, high customisation or high selection on the services occurring in this type of Industry. Also, CAPE employ a high labour intensity as the Oil Industry service sector is located globally, in short the service range offered by CAPE is readily accessible, incurring fewer costs for equipment and labour. 3.0 Service Design and Delivery The contracts that are held by CAPE require daily customer contact on a personal level, having designated Business Delivery Managers for these contracts assist the customers with what they need for their services. So as to maintain the efficiency and speed of service, there are also designated project managers. These managers have constant contact with the offshore or onshore facility, this is handled in such a way that both the customer and the CAPE Business Delivery Manager are aware of all the daily operations that are on going. The services rendered by CAPE Industrial Services are a vast range of Multi-Disciplined Fabric Maintenance and Access techniques to Oil and Gas Sector. Charges built into the contract rates cover the costs of the additional project management. At times, services are requested that are not of the norm for CAPE, to service these Third party companies are brought in under the CAPE banner. While the cost of these services may vary much from the standard contract rates, excellent service is a must. Thus, extra costs are incurred for additional time and effort put into the contract by the CAPE managers. So as to make the services offered by CAPE more affordable and viable for their customers; the company tends to work on providing innovative ideas that will improve work ethics. Typical innovative ideas are the Introduction of Industrial Rope Access; this is a benefit to the customer as it cuts out the need for Scaffold or other means of conventional access solutions. Like other service companies, one of the common strategies of CAPE is to offer a volume discount or a reduced rate if the period of the contract can be extended. 4.0 Service Strategy Service companies in the Oil and Gas Industry have numerous strategies on how their rendered services can be better than competitors. Aside from maintaining quality and safety in service, one of the aims of the CAPE Industrial Services is to provide innovative ideas to their customers that will keep them ahead of their competitors whilst at the same time providing cost savings and improvements in quality to the customer. Improvements in the equipments and materials that are available in the Oil Industry also help in achieving the quality of service. Industrial Rope Access for instance, helps in reducing time scales for accessing work sites. Hence, this reduces costs to the customer. Using the appropriate tools in the work-site also helps to improve quality and time-scales. This goal of the company does not only facilitate in serving the customer appropriately, but most importantly it shows that the Oil and Gas Industry service area prioritises its customers. This in turn results to high customer satisfaction and loyalty. 5.0 Service Encounter: People in the Service Personnel working for CAPE Operations include Operations managers, Project Managers, QA/QC and HSE Managers, Technical Clerks and Secretarys. Each of these employees has their own designated duties and responsibilities in the area. This way, efficiency of service is maintained in the Company. Of course problems might occur in any type of businesses, a company is bound to make mistakes if there are no careful observations to their businesses. One of the problems that a company like CAPE might encounter is the companys personnel or human resource mistakes. The reason for this is the lack in the training it provides for its personnel. The training and development of each employee is very significant as this does not only help in providing confidence in work performance, but it also helps in maintaining quality service. So it is advisable for CAPE Industrial Services to train their employees well to provide their customers with better satisfaction. 6.0 Managing Service Expectation and Capacity In times when demands for services increase, CAPE Industrial Services tries to cope by conducting reliable forecasts. The company so as to keep track of its activities regularly keeps records of previous business operations. This aids the managers from predicting sudden increases of service demand. In order to cope with peak months for ad-hoc services, the customers managers are advised to make their project plans ahead of time. Through this system, CAPE is able to plan ahead for availability of equipment, consumables and personnel that will be used for upcoming projects. 7.0 Recommendations One of the problems that the organisation might face is the mistake their site personnel are committing because of their lack of training and development. As previously mentioned, this is a vital factor so as to maintain efficient service in the company and lessen the number of mistakes which can be made on one of the sites. In order to remedy this problem, the managers can plan an effective and appropriate program for each employee based on their respective duties within the company. The managers can also implement a system at the sites wherein the older workers with more site experience can assist newly hired employees. This can be a more appropriate method of training as the exposure of the workers to the actual work area can help them adjust to the nature of their job. Regular evaluation of the workers can help in improving the skills of the workers and keep them up to date of their current work performance. In this way, quality of service is maintained and skills are enhanced. Overall, the performance of CAPE Industrial Services is efficient. Considering its effective strategies and significant goals for quality service, it is enough to say that the services provided by CAPE are good and successful. However, there are other factors that are to be considered in this type of service. The consideration of these factors will not only help the company in serving their customers better, but it will also help them maintain quality and service provided to existing and potential new customers. 8.0 Operational Improvement Through the Use of Technology In reality, the world of a service company in the Oil and Gas Industry is changing. The expectations of people are different than those of past generations, Safety and Quality are becoming more important features of the industry each year, cost pressures continue to mount, and new information technologies have changed operational functions (Cushman and Shanklin, 1996; Bowers, 1987). As a result, the captive market plan concept is declining and the services are being exposed to a greater amount of competition than in the past. Due to these changes, the old strategies of a service company system must also adapt. This adaptation will definitely contribute to sufficient flexibility that will meet customers needs in an ever-changing environment while retaining the beneficial aspects of a Multi-Disciplined service provider. As CAPE is focused on giving their customers a quality service, one of the possible strategies that can be employed by the company is the application of the One Stop Sh op Fabric Maintenance service provider. As information technologies have advanced, the virtual organisation concept has been promoted as an alternative too traditional, vertically integrated organisational structures (Goldman et al, 1995). In virtual organisations, a lead entity creates an alliance with a set of other organisations (Grenier Metes, 1995). The tasks performed by the virtual organisation are divided among the entities that comprise it, based upon their respective competencies. Virtual organisations can produce superior results because they harness market forces to combine competencies in ways that traditional organisations, using internal mechanisms, cannot (Chesbrough Teece, 1996). Once constituted, the lead organisation operates the virtual organisation by co-ordinating parallel tasks through the use of sophisticated information technologies and management systems, thus creating a coherent system. A virtual organisations membership changes over time as market conditions and technologies shift and the strategies and resources of the constituent organisations evolve. While virtual organisations are most often found in high technology industries such as the development of new computer systems, some characteristics of CAPE Industrial Services make it amenable to the successful operation of a company that services the needs of the Oil and gas Industry. 9.0 Conclusion While CAPES Operations may take a lot of resources to maintain the business and the quality of service provided, the benefits that it can provide outweigh the expense incurred. Aside from that, the services offered by CAPE will definitely increase in quality, hence, greatly contributing to the goals of the company. Through careful and effective planning, budgeting and implementation, CAPE Industrial Services can begin on making little changes, improving the company one step at a time. The important thing is that constant adaptation to change is being done and that the Operations management is coming up with ways on how to improve the services that are provided by the company and keeping the customer coming back. 10.0 References Bowen, D.E., and Cummings, T.G. (1990). Suppose we took service seriously. In Service Management Effectiveness, New York: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1-4 Chase, R.B., and Hayes, R.H. (1991). Beefing-up operations in service firms. Sloan Management Review, 33 (1), 15-26 Chesbrough, H. W., and Teece D. J. (1996, January-February). When is Virtual virtuous?: Organising for innovation. Harvard Business Review, 65-73 Goldman, S. L., Nagel, R. N., and Preiss, K. (1995). Agile Competitors and Virtual Organisations: Strategies for Enriching the Customer. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Grenier R., and Metes, G. (1995). Going Virtual: Moving Your Organisation Into the 21st Century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall PTR www.soc.napier.ac.uk/module.php3?op=getlecturecloaking=nolectureid=1935516 Karmarkar, U.S., and Pitbladdo, R. (1995). Service markets and competition. Journal of Operations Management, 12 (4), 397-411 Kellogg, D.L. and Nie, W. (1995). A framework for strategic service management. Journal of Operations Management, 13, 323-337 Lovelock, C.H. (1992). A basic toolkit for service management. In Managing services: marketing, operations, and human resources 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall Roth, A.V., and Van Der Velde, M. (1991). Operations as marketing: A competitive service strategy. Journal of Operations Management, 10 (3), 303-328 Judd, R.C. (1964). The case for redefining services. Journal of Marketing, 28, 1 Rathmell, J.M. (1974). Marketing in the service sector, Cambridge, MA: Winthrop Schmenner, R.W. (1986). How can service businesses survive and prosper. Sloan Management Review, 27 (3), 21-32 Shostack. G.L. (1977). Breaking free from product marketing. Journal of Marketing, 41 (4) Sullivan, R.S. (1981). The service sector: Challenges and imperatives for research in operations management. Journal of Operations Management, 2 (4), 211-214 Thomas, D.R.E (1978). Strategy is different in service businesses. Harvard Business Review, 56 (4), 158-165

Ray Charles Contributions To Popular Music

Ray Charles Contributions To Popular Music Ray Charles has been described by many of his contemporaries, Such as Frank Sinatra, who said, Ray Charles is the only genius in the business. I am going to discuss to what extent Ray Charles contributed to popular music. Ray grew up alongside both gospel and country music and was heavily influenced by these two genres. I am going to discuss how through his integration of gospel and rhythm and blues in releases such as I Got a Woman helped Ray create his own musical identity but ultimately helped to create a whole new musical style Soul. Finally I will discuss how his fusion of white country music through Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music helped to break barriers and introduced country music to a mainstream audience. Nat King Cole and pianist-singer Charles Brown, much to similar style of Cole had a great effect on Ray Charles. Ray closely imitated these artists as a teenager and during his time with Swing Time Records, headed by Jack Lauderdale. However, for Ray too be more successful he would have develop his own musical identity. During the 1950s Ray Charles would begin to blend RB and secularise gospel styles, which would ultimately lead to birth of Soul. He would begin to incorporate the chord changes, song structures, call and response techniques, and vocal screams of gospel. The influence gospel had on Ray is present from an early age. Ray grew alongside church music and would listen to Wings Over Jordan and the Golden Gate Quartet. During his time at school he would regularly sing in a choir and also organise his own informal singing group, which would sing rhythmic gospel music. In 1953 Whilst recording for singer Tommy Ridgeley at the JM Studio, New Orleans, Ray would play a couple of tunes after the session. He performed Feeling Sad funeral march and Guitar Slims and Rays I Wonder Who. His performance is characteristically blues, as ray weeps his way through the lyrics as horns drone sombre chords. However as Micheal Lydon states that after re-listening, Ray opens his voice in baby steps, exploring how to shade his vocal textures. This recording shows that Ray would need to push himself further with his emotional range. Around his birthday after Ray begins to widen his emotional range his friends in New Orleans would notice a change he began to sound like a gospel singer. Trumpeter Wallace Davenport recalls The first time I heard him I thought he was Charles Brown, then he started getting into that church thing. As Ray began to incorporate gospel into his music he would listen to gospel radio and read the Braille bible he carried. Renald Richard explained how Ray loves the blues singers like Joe Turner, but most of all he loved gospel singersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦He used to talk about Archie Browne, the lead singer with the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, how much he liked them. He would then begin to sound like them by turning and playing around with his notes, which would be much to the enjoyment of the audience. Later on in December 1953 whilst with Atlantic Records, Armet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler would listen to four arrangements Ray had made on radio station, WDSU. In this you can hear three distinct elements: Jazz, Deep Blues and fervid Gospel, coming together in an early stage, not a sound which is fully refined but one that sounds like Ray Charles. If there was a single turning point in the career of Ray Charles, it probably occurred on November the 18th 1954 at a radio station in Atlanta. It was here Ray and his recently formed band would record I Got a Woman. This was his first hit Ray had with a gospel influence. In October 1954, Ray was touring with his first band toward Indianna. Whilst searching the radio stations he would stop when he found a gospel station. Renald Richard remembered vividly a gospel tune that came on with a good groove and started singing. Ray sang something like I got a woman and I answered yeh she lives cross town then shes good to me. Renald then wrote the song for the next morning to the satisfaction of Ray. I Got a Woman is an archetypal 16 bar secularisation of My Jesus is all the World to me. Others have seen it as a straight rewrite of I Got a Saviour. The songs Ray had performed before like The Suns Gonna Shine had the hortatory tones of a preacher in the pulpit. I Got a Woman was a preacher a t a picnic. Light heartened gospel spiritual joy into sexual delight. It would lift the listener with each of its 4 bar chord change, confirming his optimistic lyrics. Just as the church would joyfully celebrate the glory of God. I got a woman was a record for every happy couple in America, black, white and in-between. The band first performed I Got a Woman for Ahmet and Jerry as they arrived at the Peacock club in Atlanta. Ahmet described how the power and precision had stunned Jerry. Jerry stated that something fantastic had happened, Ray had hatched, ready for fame. Through blending gospel with blues, Ray had the first time fused two strict idioms. In the African-American community the blues and gospel are both part of their culture. However a blues singer didnt sing gospel and a gospel singer didnt sing the blue. It was taboo. Many people believed that it was sacrilegious to mix blues with spirituals says Big Bill Broonzy and American blues singer. However, it quickly rose to the top of the charts in early 1955, the success of I got a woman being down to good attention from both white and black markets. Before, Ray had recorded songs like Mess Around by Ahmet Ertegà ¼n, which were big in the RB charts but not the white charts. A year after its first recording, Elvis Presley would confirm the impression it made by his own cover of I Got a Woman at RCA. In Jan 1955 Billboard quotes as I Got a Woman as one of the most infectious blues sides to come out since the summer. At the following recording session for Atlantic in Miami. Rays defining sound would be clearly and precisely heard. Ray recorded four charts, two straight blues and two gospel charts. The gospel songs This Little Girl of Mine and A Fool For You would reiterate Rays push of his gospel influence. This Little Girl of Mine is an up-tempo shouter with a rhythmic Latin feel based on the gospel song This Little Light of Mine. A Fool For You is a 6/8 double time waltz with Rays sanctified singing but without the heavenly lyrics, accompanied by piano gospel licks and preaching horns. Although, like I Got a Woman these two gospel and RB charts was seen as sacrilegious, the mix Ray had created appealed to so many audiences across the nation, and introduced a new music that would have a lasting effect, which would be later labelled as Soul music. As the 1950s progressed vocal groups following Ray Charles, began to add a sense of urgency and meaning- Soul, to their style of music resulting in the groups of Motown and others, including groups like the Chicago based family band called the Staple Singers who had hit songs which were centred around Gospel and RB. Their success followed on into the 1970s. In the late 1950s into the 1960s girl groups joined male Doo-Wop and RR groups, which resulted in groups like The Shirelles, Marveletess and The Supremes. Their material was largely written by the Brill Building writers and received hit records but never usually lasted. As Ray Charles added the gospel influence to his music, such as the call and response backing vocal groups like the Raylettes so too did Aretha Franklin. She reinfused her female backing groups with a gospel influence, which are present in her mid 1960s Atlantic recordings. Other artists like James Brown, who started his career as a singer with the Gospel Starlighters, following the style of Reverends Julius Cheeks and Claude Jeter added RB to their style. The vocal urgency and syncopated dance rhythms of gospel along with top notch RB house bands came together most clearly in the music of James Brown. Combining a Little Richard- style act with other theatrics from Joe Tex and a pleading version of Ray Charles gospel/soul. He then recorded his hit Please, Please, Please. In 1959 Ray released Whatd I Say, a song that became a top ten pop hit and would be one of his last singles with Atlantic before his move to ABC. There are clear gospel influences combined with the sexual innuendo in the song made it not only widely popular but very controversial to both white and black audiences. In the middle of the song. Charles indicated that The Raelettes should repeat what he was doing, and the song transformed into a call and response between Charles, The Raelettes, and the horn section in the orchestra as they called out to each other in ecstatic shouts and moans and blasts from the horns. This improvised interchange between himself and the Raylettes and between the band and audience is much like that of a Preacher and his congregation. Ray also uses gospel dialouge with unuh-uhnnh over charles moans and cries. He also uses phrases like shake that thing and I feel alright, and expression for the body instead of the lord. During Rays early life the influence of country and western music is ever present. When Ray Charles was growing up, the south was full of Country or Hillbilly music. Ray explains how there wasnt a single Saturday night that he wouldnt listen to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio. I loved Grandpa Jones and other characters. I could hear what they were doing and appreciate the feeling behind it. Ray would listen to Jimmie Rodgers, Roy Acuff, Hank Snow, Hank Williams and later Eddie Arnold. I listened to them all the time, I certainly dug it and paid it some mind. In 1948 Ray joined a Hillbilly band called the Florida Playboys. It took just one audition to convince the Playboys that Ray could play country music with genuine flavour, and they hired him, no questions asked about race. For seven months he gigged with the band, playing current country hits of the day like Kentucky Waltz and Anytime in white honky-tonks in and around Tampa, learning to yodel and singing, Waiting All for You. Even as black, blind man, Ray was accepted and applauded just like anyone else by the audience. I could play the music right and I could do country music with as much feeling as any other southernerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. I had been hearing it since I was a baby. Long before the birth of his own country music, Charles looked back with pride on his stint with the Playboys.Lydon. In an outtake of a 1950s recording, Ray plays a limpid country lick. The producer chuckles over the studio intercom and says that he didnt know Ray could play Nashville. Ray then replies Man, Didnt you know I gigged with the Florida Playboys His time with the Florida Playboys, though brief would plant a seed in his mind that would rise during the 1960s. After leaving Atlantic Records in 1959, Ray joined ABC and at the end of 1961. He asked Sid Feller to get together 40 country hits from the last twenty years with the idea to record a country album. Sid Feller had not know at the time that Ray liked County and Samuel Clark and Larry Newton the executives at ABC Records were adamantly opposed to the idea that Charles brought to them. The ABC executives said, You cant do no country-western things.Youre gonna lose all your fans! However Feller believed that Ray understood Country music. He describes how Ray loved the simple plaintive lyrics, and he felt that giving the music a lush treatment would make it different Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music is a dozen tunes that runs the whole scope of Nashville from the traditional Careless Love to the rock and roll Bye Bye Love and from Hank Williams to the B-side fail of I Cant Stop Loving You. The tracks alternate from big band to string and voice. However regardless of all the jazz and symphonic effects present, the heart of every arrangement is a simple strummed guitar. Rays bluesy melismas wring every tear out of the country weepers, all the poetry out of their monosyllabic lyrics. I Cant Stop Loving You has a folk song strength, major scale melody, marching up and down over 3 chords and operatic grandeur created by his baritone voice and orchestra. He also uses his trademark letting the chorus lead the lyric with his voice following. Ray sings County in his own way, expanding the country sounds without distorting its colour. Rays own blend obscures the fact that Modern Sounds was his boldest album, which breaks many barriers. Invading white country music in the 1960s was something black pop-jazz singers didnt do. You had to be Country in 1962. After Modern Sounds it became a major player in Rays repertoire and on popular music. His unique blend of Country, Pop, Jazz and RB introduced country music to people of the city and showed to record companies and producers how to arrange their music to reach a much wider audience. Ray Charles played a pivotal role in shaping the course of a seemingly very different genre of popular music. In the words of his good friend and sometimes collaborator, Willie Nelson, speaking before Charles death in 2004, Ray Charles the RB legend did more for country music than any other living human being. The landmark album that earned Ray Charles that praise was Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, which held at number 1 for 14 weeks and stayed in the charts for 2 years. His single release I Cant Stop Loving You ruled at number 1 on RB and Easy Listening charts for weeks in the summer of 1962 dipping to 3rd in July and beginning to fall in august. As Charles told Rolling Stone magazine a decad e later, But Charles recognized the quality of songs like I Cant Stop Loving You by Don Gibson and You Dont Know Me, by Eddy Arnold and Cindy Walker, and the fact that his version of both of those country songs landed in the Top 5 on both the pop and RB charts was vindication of Charless long-held belief that Theres only two kinds of music as far as Im concerned: good and bad. Following the massive commercial success and notice of Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music, country music experienced an immediate increase in popularity. According to music writer Daniel Cooper, the album raised the genres profile, specifically Nashville sound, of which Charles had covered. Benefiting from this were songwriters, music publishers and country singers who covered the subgenres material. As noted by Cooper, by the end of 1962, Nashville country publishers were being held as the hottest source of music material in the record business these days. Ray Charless success with the stylistic fusion of country and soul on Modern Sounds later lead to country soul efforts from performers, such as Candi Staton and Solomon Burke who were both greatly influenced by Charless Modern Sounds recordings. Many country music artists, such as Willie Nelson and Buck Owens, have cited Charless take on country music and Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music as their major influences. In an interview for Country Music Television, Nelson said of Modern Sounds influence that the album did more for country music than any one artist has ever done. Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music has also been perceived by many critics and writers as a landmark album in American music, as the record was the first to blend the two racially distinct genres of country and soul. Ray Charles all-embracing attitude toward music was one that he developed during his childhood and early career. Ray was immersed in the sounds of jazz, blues, gospel and country in his youth, playing in RB bands and a Country Hillbilly band. Ray Charles pioneered soul music, which had a great effect on popular music. In secularising certain aspects of gospel music with RB, Ray received his first gospel and RB hit I Got a Woman, which received attention from both black and white audiences. Subsequently, further releases like Whatd I Say and the Hallelujah I Lover Her So album attracted a large mainstream audience. His fusion of white country music earned Ray mainstream and crossover success, with his album Modern Sound in Country and Western Music which broke racial stereotypes and exposed country music to city dwellers. It also helped other country artists; particularly them orientated around the Nashville sound, reach a wider audience, raising the genres profile. To him, the bounda ries between those styles of music were made to be crossed, and he made a career out of doing just that having a great effect on popular music.

Their Eyes Were Watching God Essay -- essays research papers

Love and Marriage   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is a novel about a Southern black woman and her experiences through life. Janie, the main character, is forced at a young age by her grandmother, into an arranged marriage with a man named Logan. Janie is told to learn to love Logan, but the love never comes for Logan in Janie's heart so she leaves him. She meets a man named Joe. Soon after they are married. Joe was sweet at first, then his true feelings about women come out and Janie looses her love she thought she had for him. He soon dies after their separation. Janie then falls in love with a man named Tea Cake. He is the man with whom she has a wonderful, loving, happy marriage. Janie, through youth and lack of empowerment, is mislead to believe other people's definitions of love and marriage until she is strong enough to find a relationship on her own which satisfies her personal definitions of love and marriage.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Nanny, Janie's grandmother, leads her to believe that love comes after marriage though love is secondary to the security marriage provides. Nanny feels marriage was simply for security and to start a family. 'Taint Logan Killicks Ah wants you to have baby, it's protection.';(pg. 14). Nanny says this to Janie before her arranged marriage to Logan. Nanny wants Janie to be financially set with her life before she dies and leaves Janie to fend for herself. Nanny wants her to start a f...

Truthful Horatio of Shakespeares Hamlet :: GCSE English Literature Coursework

Truthful Horatio in Hamlet Horatio's role in Hamlet is minor, however he serves two purposes central to the drama. Horatio provides the truth. It is through Horatio that the actions taken by Hamlet and other characters gain credibility. He is the outside observer to the madness. Hamlet could soliloquize to no end, but it is his conversations with Horatio that ground the play in reality. Horatio believes Hamlet and thus we have permission to believe. He sees the Ghost and so we can believe that Hamlet has seen the Ghost. If Horatio were not there, Hamlet's sanity would truly be in doubt. Horatio's second purpose is to be Hamlet's one true confidant. Apart from Hamlet's soliloquies, his conversations with Horatio are the only insight we have into what the Prince is really thinking and feeling. But why Hamlet chooses Horatio to become the sole person on whom he can rely is of primary concern here. From the first scene we see that Horatio is calm, resolute, and rational. Not afraid to confront the Ghost, Horatio demands that it speak if it knows what future awaits Denmark or if it has come to make a confession: If thou art privy to thy country's fate... O, speak! Or if thou hast uphoarded in thy life Extorted treasure in the womb of earth... Speak of it, stay and speak! (I.i.133-9) Hamlet admires Horatio for the qualities that Hamlet himself does not possess. He praises Horatio for his virtue and self-control: "Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man/As e'er my conversation cop'd withal" (III.ii.56-7). Horatio's strength of character is unwavering, and Hamlet longs for the peace of mind that such stoicism must bring to Horatio: Dost thou hear? Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice, And could of men distinguish her election, Hath seal'd thee for herself, for thou hast been As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing, A man that fortune's buffets and rewards Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those Whose blood and judgement are so well commedled That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger To sound what stop she please. Give me that man That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart, As i do thee. (III.ii.65-70) Thus Horatio has reached an apex that Hamlet recognizes is the freedom from emotional upheaval.

Comparing and contrasting lease versus purchase options Essay

It is important to know the difference between lease purchase and lease option. The use of leases can also have an impact on a company’s liquidity profitability ratios (Schroeder, Clark, & Cathey, 2005). First the organization should study the expenses of what it would cost to lease as to what it cost to purchase this can be done with a reduced cash flow evaluation. The study would compare the expense of the alternatives by taking into account the scheduling of payments, tax benefits, and interest rates on any loans, and other financial arrangements. To make an evaluation, the company has to be sure about the financially viable lifespan of equipment, this would also include the salvage value and depreciation of such equipment. Here is a brief description of what debt financing is referred as. Debt financing is when money is borrowed by an organization and has to be repaid back with interest. Debt financing does dilute the ownership of the company. Debt financing can be looked at as either a long-term debt or short-term debt. Two examples of debt financing are the issue of Bonds and a Line of Credit. Line of Credit is a bank loan where a company can draw out funds when times are slow, and money is needed. Bonds can be issued as form of debt financing. Bonds are usually long-term and come with a maturity ranging from seven to 30 years. These bonds are usually underwritten by a bank or securities firm who assist in the sales of these bonds. Equity financing is another method of raising money by selling company stock to outside investors. In return for their interest in buying stock, the shareholder receives ownership interest in the company. An advantage to using debt is that the debt helps to produce and hold greater investment returns for the company’s equity holders. When using debt financing the primary advantage is that it allows the founders to hold ownership and control of the company. The disadvantage to this is that it  requires smaller business to make monthly payments of both principal and interest. The use of capital structure depends on what a company can afford some small companies cannot afford debt financing like larger corporations. I think equity financing is a good way for smaller companies to raise capital because the owner can still hold on to control and raise money at the same time. Reference Schroeder, R.G., Clark, M.W., & Cathey, J.M. (2005). Financial Accounting Theory and Analysis (8th Ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

AIDS 3rd revision

Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or AIDS as we commonly know it, is a life threatening condition a person wouldn’t want to be caught into. It was discovered in the United States way back in 1981.   Since then, it has been a major problem of the world.Until now, there is no known cure for AIDS, a very alarming fact because anyone could get infected. AIDS is caused by a virus know to kill or damage cells of the body’s immune system.That virus is what we commonly know as HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). Because of its destructive behavior against the cells of the immune system, HIV disables the body’s capability to fight infections and cancer causing agents.When a person has AIDS, he or she is prone to getting life-threatening ailments because their bodies cannot fight the build-up of infections (â€Å"Women, Children and HIV†, 2006).Reports show that dating back to 1981, there has been more than a million cases of AIDS recorded. Statistics show that 2 5% of these people are unaware of the HIV infection. Because of this, they are likely to infect other people and transmit the virus (â€Å"HIV infections†, 2006).Symptoms of HIV InfectionIf not diagnosed early, HIV is hard to detect. Upon infection, you will not experience any symptoms. But it is possible to feel a flu-like ailment after 1-2 months of exposure to HIV. It could include fever, headache, enlarged lymph nodes and a certain feeling of tiredness.These symptoms are gone after one week to one month and are usually associated with other diseases. At this time, people can easily infect others, and the virus is greatly concentrated in the genital fluids. This is a very critical time for infecting other people because you don’t know that you have the disease.And when you have multiple sexual partners, it is likely to infect them with the virus. This is the period where you need to wear protection, in order not to infect others. The next set of symptoms may not sur face for 10 years or more after you first got infected with the virus. This is varying for some people.Some may experience these symptoms just after a few months while others may not and continue living normally for more than 10 years. This is known as the asymptomatic period.During the asymptomatic period,   the cells of the immune system are slowly being killed by the rapid multiplying and infecting of the virus.   Infected cells serve as hiding places of the HIV and lays there for some period of dormancy.The most evident outcome of the viral infection is a decrease in a component of the blood, the number of CD4 positive T cells drastically decreases. These cells are the immune system’s infection fighters. These cells are destroyed slowly without any symptoms. Because of this, the situation of the immune system gets worse, where various complications begin to surface.The primary signs of infection are swollen lymph nodes all over the body lasting for about three months. Other symptoms that occur before the onset of AIDS include lack of energy, weight loss, frequent fevers and sweats, rashes, flaky skin, memory loss and inflammation of the pelvis in women.   Others could develop sores in their mouth, sex organs or in their anus.Raising Doubts against AIDS and HIVNot everyone is convinced about the HIV/AIDS theory. The explanation was HIV is a virus that attacks the immune system and then matures into AIDS, thus further destroying the immune system until there is nothing left to destroy.Some researchers question the credibility of this theory on many accounts. One of them is Peter Duesberg, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. He is concerns are on the field of virology and wrote about HIV/AIDS in 1987. As these issues continued to shock and amaze the world, Duesberg was unmoved.He accepts the fact that HIV is real, but poses no real harm on people, and that AIDS is caused by some other factors which are not infectious and cann ot be contacted to other people. There are also other people that rebuke the theory about HIV/AIDS. They are known as denialists by their enemies.These people include a group of medical scientists and researchers from Australia known as the Perth Group. They claim that nobody has yet discovered any proof for the existence of HIV, so there is basically no foundation on claims that HIV causes AIDS.Defining AIDS: What is and what is notAIDS doesn’t show specific symptoms. There is only a distinct characteristic of the human body when it has AIDS. It lacks a certain type of white blood cells, which is very important in order to live a healthy life. These white blood cells are the ones responsible in fighting infections off the body.Normal people usually have around 600 to 1,500 CD4+ Cells, or the helper T cells, per cubic millimeter of blood. People with AIDS have much lower levels of these helper T cells in their blood, causing immune deficiency, responsible for their vulnerabil ity to ailments.Way back in the 80’s, no one knows what really caused AIDS. They based their definition on the findings of one of 13 diseases of high rarity, which is connected to immune deficiency.As years passed, the definition was sharpened by thousands of similar occurrences that have been recorded, though sometimes it involves other ailments, but are related thru the same immune deficiency.