Alley Cats Christmas 2011

Did You Know? - The Alley Cats are an American doo-wop group singing in a cappella. The group originated in 1987, when a doo-wop revival program was occurring at Fullerton College. Two men, also the group's future founding fathers, Mando Fonseca and Royce "The Voice" Reynolds, decided to start an a cappella group. Two additional members along the way, Todd Dixon and Andre Peek, materialized and the foursome gained notice. Since then The Alley Cats have performed for many audiences, ranging from elementary school fun nights to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, as well as opening for Leno at his Las Vegas shows. The Alley Cats's sound has been heard as well at The White House.

Did You Know? - The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and areas of greater Los Angeles including El Monte and Compton. Built upon vocal harmony, doo-wop was one of the most mainstream, pop-oriented R&B styles of the 1950s and 1960s.

As a musical genre, Doo-wop is a type of vocal group harmony with the musical qualities of many vocal parts, nonsense syllables, a simple beat, little, or no, instrumentation, and simple music and lyrics. It is ensemble singing with single artists appearing with a backing group. Solo billing usually implies that the individual is more prominent in the musical arrangement.

Did You Know? - Claim Jumper is a restaurant chain headquartered in Irvine, California with 45 locations in Arizona, California, Illinois, Colorado, Nevada, Washington, Wisconsin and Oregon. Founder Craig Nickoloff opened the first Claim Jumper Restaurant in Los Alamitos, California in 1977.

Until 2005, CWN Management, Inc., which operates the Claim Jumper chain, had been privately owned by the Nickoloff family. Leonard Green & Partners purchased a majority stake in the company in 2005 for a reported $200 million. The company filed for bankruptcy on September 10, 2010. On October 28, 2010, the chain was auctioned off with Landry's Restaurants being the winning bidder

Did You Know? - A pizza just removed from the oven. The Ancient Greeks covered their bread with oils, herbs and cheese. In Byzantine Greek, the word was spelled πίτα or pita, meaning pie. The word has now spread to Turkish as pide, Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian as pita, Albanian as pite and Modern Hebrew pittāh. The Romans developed placenta, a sheet of dough topped with cheese and honey and flavored with bay leaves. Modern pizza originated in Italy as the Neapolitan pie with tomato. In 1889, cheese was added.

In 1889, during a visit to Naples, Queen Margherita of Italy was served a pizza resembling the colors of the Italian flag, red (tomato), white (mozzarella) and green (basil). This kind of pizza has been named after the Queen as Pizza Margherita.

Did You Know? - Nestled in the foothills on a plateau at the northern tip of Orange County, Brea was known as a place where tar seeped from the hills. The word "Brea" means tar in Spanish. In early history, Indians and pioneers used chunks of the oil-soaked earth for fuel and domestic purposes like heating their homes and waterproofing their roofs. Then came the big oil boom!

In 1894, the Union Oil Company purchased 1,200 acres of land to be used for oil development. They struck it rich in 1898 when the first oil well, Olinda Oil Well #1, came in - thus creating an oil boom in the hills of Brea and Olinda and paving the way for the thriving city that Brea is today.

An actual town did not develop until 1911 when businesses and small industries sprang up to serve the oil field workers and their families. The official founding date for the town of Brea is January 19, 1911, when the old map of the town of Randolph was refiled under a new name. The City of Brea became incorporated on February 23, 1917, with a population of 752.

Did You Know? - The term "doo-wop" is first known to have appeared in print in 1961 in the Chicago Defender, when fans of the music coined the term during the height of a vocal harmony resurgence. The phrase has been attributed to the radio disc jockey Gus Gossert but Gossert himself said that "doo-wop(p) was already being used [before me] to categorize the music in California."

Did You Know? - A cappella (Italian for "in the manner of the church" or "in the manner of the chapel" ) music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way.

In modern usage, a cappella often refers to an all-vocal group performance of any style, including barbershop , doo wop , and modern pop/rock.

Did You Know? - A train whistle or air whistle, (originally referred to as a steam trumpet), is an audible signaling device on a steam locomotive used to warn that the train is approaching, and to communicate with rail workers.

The older steam whistles were almost always actuated with a pull cord (or sometimes a lever) that permitted proportional (tracker) action, so that some form of "expression" could be put into the sound. Many locomotive operators would have their own style of blowing the whistle, and it was often apparent who was operating the locomotive by the sound. Modern locomotives often make use of a push button switch, which takes away the fine control over the way the whistle is sounded.

Because trains generally have extremely high mass and relatively low braking friction, they are inherently difficult to stop at normal speeds. Since train whistles were extremely inexpensive to institute compared to other more effective warning devices, the use of loud and distinct train whistles had become the preferred safety fallback for railway operators.

Did You Know? - North American steam locomotive whistles have different sounds from one another. They came in many forms, from tiny little single-note shriekers (called banshees on the Pennsylvania Railroad) to larger plain whistles with deeper tones (a deep, plain train whistle is the "hooter" of the Norfolk & Western, used on their A- and Y-class Mallet locomotives).

Even more well known were the multi-chime train whistles. Nathan of New York copied and improved Casey Jones's boiler-tube chime whistle by casting the six chambers into a single bell, with open "steps" on top to save on casting. This whistle is still considered the "king of train whistles".

If Greg had this chart it could have been a long evening for all of us...

Did You Know? - A gang is a group of people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen. In the United Kingdom the word is still often used in this sense, but it later underwent pejoration. The word gang often carries a negative connotation; however, within a gang which defines itself in opposition to mainstream norms, members may adopt the phrase as a statement of identity or defiance.

The word gang derives from the past participle of Old English gan, meaning "to go". It is cognate with Old Norse gangr, meaning "journey."