Fredesvinda García

Fredesvinda García Valdés, known always as Freddy, (1935 in Camagüey – 31 July 1961 in San Juan, Puerto Rico) was a Cuban female singer of high quality. She was born in Céspedes, a small village in the Camagüey Province of Cuba from a poor peasant family. She sang a cappella in clubs in Havana and recorded only one album before her death from a heart attack. Her weight (she was over 300 lbs) gave a very distinctive, androgynous sound to her voice. She was, almost entirely, a singer of boleros and canciones.

When she moved Havana, aged 12, she became a cook for the Bengochea family (Arturo Bengochea was the president of the Cuban League of Professional Base-Ball) but soon she found herself singing nights at the Bar Celeste, on Humboldt and Infanta Streets, a place where artists used to meet. She was spotted by the director of the Hotel Capri's casino, and given a contract. She opened at the Cabaret Capri with orchestration by Rafael Somavilla, in the review Piminta y Sal (pepper & salt) with other singers, dancers and a quartet led by pianist Carlos Faxas. Freddy appeared in several key TV programs, like Jueves de Partagas (1959), which she remembered dearly. On that show she appeared with Benny Moré and Celia Cruz.

Freddy

Freddy or Freddie may refer to:

People

Other uses

See also

Freddy (Angolan footballer)

Frederico Castro Roque dos Santos (born 14 August 1979), known as Freddy, is an Angolan footballer who plays for C.R. Caála mainly as a forward.

He spent most of his professional career in Portugal and Cyprus.

Club career

Born in Malanje, Freddy spent 11 seasons at G.D. Estoril Praia – youth years comprised – playing two seasons in the third division and one in the second as a senior. In 2001–02 he made his top level debuts, being coached by a young José Mourinho and playing in 22 games (17 as a substitute) as the team qualified to the UEFA Intertoto Cup; during four years, he only started in 16 of the league games he appeared in.

Freddy started 2005–06 with Moreirense F.C. in the second level, but transferred to Al-Gharafa Sports Club in Qatar in the next transfer window. He would also split the following campaign, between C.D. Aves (top division) and Malaysia's Negeri Sembilan FA, appearing in six AFC Cup games during his short spell with the latter and scoring three goals.

Robert Baldwin (cartoonist)

Robert G. Baldwin (1914–1977), who used the signature Rupe, was best known for his comic strip Freddy about a goofy kid.

Baldwin studied painting at Washington's Corcoran School of Art. Instead of entering the field of fine art, however, he supported himself with government work and advertising art. His cartoon illustrations led him into minor comic book artwork, contributing to Prize Comics and Spook Comics.

Freddy

In the early 1950s, Baldwin and his wife, music teacher Helen L. Baldwin (1913–1998), were living in the Far East, where he worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, when they created the comic strip Freddy about a little boy named Freddy J. McReady. As he drew, she wrote gags for the strip, which was loosely based on their children. In 1955, he left the CIA and concentrated on the strip, using a loose brush ink style to draw his chubby child. Eventually published in 100 newspapers, it ran from 1955 to 1980, distributed by the George Matthew Adams Service and later the Washington Star Syndicate and Field Enterprises.

Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of tonality, rhythm, the use of sustained tones and a variety of vocal techniques. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung without accompaniment or with accompaniment by musical instruments. Singing is often done in a group of other musicians, such as in a choir of singers with different voice ranges, or in an ensemble with instrumentalists, such as a rock group or baroque ensemble. Singers may also perform as soloist with accompaniment from a piano (as in art song and in some jazz styles) or with a symphony orchestra or big band. There are a range of different singing styles, including art music styles such as opera and Chinese opera, religious music styles such as Gospel, traditional music styles, world music, jazz, blues and popular music styles such as pop and rock.

Singing can be formal or informal, arranged or improvised. It may be done for religious devotion, as a hobby, as a source of pleasure, comfort, or ritual, as part of music education, or as a profession. Excellence in singing requires time, dedication, instruction, and regular practice. If practice is done on a regular basis then the sounds can become more clear and strong. Professional singers usually build their careers around one specific musical genre, such as classical or rock, although there are singers with crossover success (singing in more than one genre). They typically take voice training provided by voice teachers or vocal coaches throughout their careers.

Singer Motors

Singer Motors Limited was a British motor vehicle manufacturing business, originally a bicycle manufacturer founded as Singer & Co by George Singer, in 1874 in Coventry, England. Singer & Co's bicycle manufacture continued. From 1901 George Singer's Singer Motor Co made cars and commercial vehicles.

Singer Motor Co was the first motor manufacturer to make a small economy car that was a replica of a large car, showing a small car was a practical proposition. It was much more sturdily built than otherwise similar cyclecars. With its four-cylinder ten horsepower engine the Singer Ten was launched at the 1912 Cycle and Motor Cycle Show at Olympia. William Rootes, Singer apprentice at the time of its development and consummate car-salesman, contracted to buy 50, the entire first year's supply. It became a best-seller. Ultimately Singer's business was acquired by his Rootes Group in 1956, which continued the brand until 1970, a few years following Rootes' acquisition by the American Chrysler corporation.

Singer (naval mine)

The Singer was a naval mine made and deployed by the Confederacy during the American Civil War. It was a manually laid moored contact mine.

Development

During the American Civil War, Matthew Fontaine Maury, a Confederate government official established the Torpedo Bureau and the Torpedo Corps in Richmond, Virginia to oversee the development and deployment of new types of naval mines. Maury was convinced that the only way to defend the coastlines against Union assaults was through the widespread use of naval mines. Mines were inexpensive and easily produced on a large scale. The low cost and large volume of mines produced would supplement the small naval forces of the Confederacy and make it possible to defend against the superior fleet of the Union navy. The efforts of the Torpedo Bureau and the Torpedo Corps proved to be worth the investment of the Confederacy. For the relative low cost of the mines they did a tremendous amount of damage to the Union forces, sinking a total of 27 Union naval vessels.