People - B
Famous and Infamous People, Leaders & Luminaries in Colorado Arts, Culture & Folklore
People Pages: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W XYZ - Hall of Fame -
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- Ginger Baker was drummer for Cream and Blind Faith, two national megabands of the late 1960s, early 1970s. Ginger lived in Elbert County, near Parker where he head a ranch for several years in the 1990s. Cream's lead man was Eric Clapton. Baker has a history of solo jazz performance as well.
quote: "Her big hero was Ginger Baker in Cream." - Woody Boyd (Woody Harrelson) speaking about his mother to coworker Dianne Chambers (Shelly Long) in an episode of Cheers TV sitcom.
- Ruth Bennett - Former longtime Boulderite Ruth Bennett hit the bigtime as a writer and producer of sit-com TV shows in tinsel town after a long stint as local DJ at KRNW radio in the 1970s. Her credits include producer of Duet, Open House and Sarah, staff writer for Family Ties and writer for Home Improvement. Legend has it she got her start by writing an episode of MASH. I recall when she shared a tiny apartment on Mapleton St. and other parts of Boulder. Last heard she's married and living in a nice house in Malibu. Ruth hails from Ann Arbor, Michigan.)
- Indir.Survey: 950516G.Perry.
- Alan Berg, radio talk show host - In 1984 a sensational murder took the life of outspoken radio talk show host Alan Berg as he arrived home on the 1400 Block of Adams Street, near East Colfax Avenue across from the Bluebird Theater (before it was a concert and fine film venue). Berg, who was Jewish, was gunned down in his driveway while exiting his Volkswagen, by white supremicists who had baited him in hostile call-ins on the air before the killing. The execution received national publicity. His killers went on to commit a major armored car robbery in another state. They were later caught and convicted of both crimes. The wife of Alan Berg wrote a book about the tragedy in east Denver.
- Jello Biafra (aka: Eric Boucher) - Jello is from Boulder where he grew up and attended Boulder High School. He went to San Francisco and made bad as lead singer for the Dead Kennedys punk rock group in early '80s. He is also remembered for being acquitted on an obscenity charge resulting from the benign H.R. Giger vaginal penis landscape that appeared on his Frankenchrist album cover.
- A SCORCHIN HOT Link!
Blue Mountain Arts <BlueMountain.com> has been a Boulder greeting card publisher for decades and went online a few years ago as Blue Mountain Arts Electronic Greeting Cards to become the highest-traffic shopping site on the Internet. It got an astonishing 12 million visitors in December, 1998 alone. In comparison, Amazon.com got only 9.1 million while Ebay.com got 5.5 million for the same month. Blue Mountain Arts was founded by a social-activist Woodstock couple, Susan Polis Schutz and Stephen Schutz in 1971.
- info source: Time magazine, 1999 Feb. 08, page 79. Their source was Media Metrix; Bio info summarized from the Blue Mountain Arts web site, 99Nv02Tu
- Rosalyn Bishop
Singer Rosalyn has reportedly has lived in Denver and performed with Placido Domingo.
- Indirect Survey: 950831SBHolle.
- Tommy Bolin
- Eric Boucher (See: Biafra, Jello.)
- Stan Brakhage - Film experimentalist Stan Brakhage has been a film intructor at CU in recent years. He attained some international noteriety for manipulating the actual medium of film in artistic ways. I saw Dog Star Man and one or two other Brakhage films. I don't know yet if the noteriety came out of his artistic results or more likely his methods which may have been breaking new territory in their time (the 1960s???). More recently, computer methods have brought the job of image manipulation closer to fantasies of the mind, leaving most celluloid methods in the dust. But perhaps I would need to know more about Brakhage to discover something more appreciable. Brakhage's films can be rented (as videos) from Across the Trax in Denver.
- Raymond Burr
born 1917 May 21, New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
died: 1993 Sept. 12, Dry Creek Valley, CA
Most baby boomers grew up watching a certain TV lawyer who never failed to make some diabolical witness confess, thus setting his client free. The lawyer, of course, was Perry Mason forever played by Raymond Burr from the fifties through the early 1990's. Burr also acted in films and in the Ironside TV cop show. In recent years prior to Burr's passing, a large number of the final Perry Mason episodes were filmed right here in Cowtown. Mostly in the courtrooms of the City and County Building in the heart of downtown Denver. Burr left Canada at the age of 6 to live in Vallejo, California and then San Fransisco. He started acting in theater in his teens. His film career included 90 films before the Perry Mason series.
ref: Baseline's Ency. of Film; Microsoft Cinemania; The Perry Mason Pages (web site).
- Verne 'Byars' - Promoter Verne 'Byars' had one local claim to fame. He booked the Beatles to play at Red Rocks Amphitheater in the 1960s. They played only six songs lasting about 30 minutes for the lowly sum of twenty thousand dollars. It was the only Beatles show ever in Colorado. Incidently the Beatles stayed in Suite 840 at the Brown Palace Hotel. I seem to recall hearing that Verne was mainly a jazz and blues promoter prior to this big event.
EDIT NOTE: Must dig up exact date and get spelling of Verne's last name.
