Ebony Woman

Ebony Woman is an album by soul singer Billy Paul. The album was produced by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, arranged by Stanley Johnson and Bobby Martin, and engineered by Joe Tarsia. On its original Neptune Records release in 1970 the LP reached #12 on the Billboard soul charts and #183 on the pop charts. The Bobby Martin penned "Let's Fall in Love All Over" was released as a single but failed to chart. The album was re-released with new cover art in 1973 on Philadelphia International Records reaching #186 on the pop chart and #43 on the soul charts. Big Break Records remastered the album for its 2012 re-release on CD.

Release and critical reaction

Billy Paul originally recorded the song "Ebony Woman" in 1959 and it was released as a single on the New Dawn label. The song was resurrected and re-cut as the title track for an album which Paul and his producers Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff wanted to make a statement with. Specifically, Paul's debut Feelin' Good at the Cadillac Club was a conventional jazz album with sparse production that failed to make the impact they hoped it would. Paul recalled the shift in direction: "We decided to do something with a more up-to-date sound, with more musicians. Something that would venture a bit into R&B but without me losing my sound. We spent a lot of time workin it out and came up with the album called Ebony Woman, which came out on Neptune." Paul mixed jazz and soul; ballads with mid-tempo and upbeat numbers; and covers with originals—a formula he would repeat on subsequent albums. The album's modest chart success was buoyed by its considerable appeal in Detroit, home of Motown.

Woman

A woman is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent. The term woman is also sometimes used to identify a female human, regardless of age, as in phrases such as "women's rights". "Woman" may also refer to a person's gender identity. Women with typical genetic development are usually capable of giving birth from puberty until menopause. In the context of gender identity, transgender people who are biologically determined to be male and identify as women cannot give birth. Some intersex people who identify as women cannot give birth due to either sterility or inheriting one or more Y chromosomes. In extremely rare cases, people who have Swyer syndrome can give birth with medical assistance. Throughout history women have assumed or been assigned various social roles.

Etymology

The spelling of woman in English has progressed over the past millennium from wīfmann to wīmmann to wumman, and finally, the modern spelling woman. In Old English, wīfmann meant "female human", whereas wēr meant "male human". Mann or monn had a gender-neutral meaning of "human", corresponding to Modern English "person" or "someone"; however, subsequent to the Norman Conquest, man began to be used more in reference to "male human", and by the late 13th century had begun to eclipse usage of the older term wēr. The medial labial consonants f and m in wīfmann coalesced into the modern form "woman", while the initial element, which meant "female", underwent semantic narrowing to the sense of a married woman ("wife"). It is a popular misconception that the term "woman" is etymologically connected with "womb", which is from a separate Old English word, wambe meaning "stomach" (of male or female; modern German retains the colloquial term "Wampe" from Middle High German for "potbelly"). Nevertheless, such a false derivation of "woman" has appeared in print.

Woman (1918 film)

Woman is a 1918 American silent film directed by Maurice Tourneur, an allegorical film showcasing the story of women through points in time. Popular in its day, the film was distributed in the State's Rights plan as opposed to a major distributor like Paramount or Universal. This film has been preserved in private collections and in major venues like the Museum of Modern Art and reportedly the Gosfilmofond Archive in Russia.

Some scenes were shot at Bar Harbor, Maine. It was here that one of Tourneur's cameramen, John van den Broek, lost his life while filming a scene close to the raging Atlantic Ocean. His body was swept out to sea and never found.

Prints of this film are held at Cineteca Del Friuli, Germona, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Gosfilmofond of Russia, Moscow.

Plot

As described in a film magazine, a modern man and woman quarrel and, in reaction to his wife, the husband recalls all the women in history who have failed their husbands or lovers. Being in an unpleasant state, he recalls Adam in the garden with a very vain Eve who disports herself in a Broadway fashion and causes the downfall of caveman-like Adam. Then he dwells on the hideous betrayal of Claudius by an unfaithful Messilna. Next he recalls the useless ruination of Abelard by the charming Heloise. Following this episode he remembers Cyrene and the fisherman, where the wife basely deserted her husband and children to swim once more in her seal skin that had been hidden from her for many years. A particularly disagreeable episode in which a young woman during the American Civil War sacrifices a wounded soldier for a bauble. After this the modern woman returns and pins up a Red Cross poster, and the modern man sees the many women of today as more or less uninspiring. An epilogue noted how World War I made men realize the true value of women, and that women are working towards victory through good works in the Red Cross and other jobs.

Woman (UK magazine)

Woman is an English weekly magazine launched in 1937. Its target audience is for 30- to 40-year-old women. It encompasses a mix of celebrity gossip and TV news, real-life stories, and fashion and beauty tips. Its lifestyle section offers ideas on homes, interiors and food, product reviews and advice.

Odhams Press founded the first colour weekly, Woman in 1937, for which it set up and operated a dedicated high-speed print works. During World War II the magazine provided a range of fashion tips to cope with clothes rationing as well as recipes to deal with the shortages and alternatives. For example, in August 1943 the recipes article focused on uses of "Household milk", which was how they referred to powdered milk.

Woman was published by Time Inc. UK. For the second half of 2013 the circulation of the magazine was 252,239 copies.

References

External links

Official website