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HOST:
Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC — VOA’s radio magazine in SpecialEnglish.
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This is Doug Johnson. On our program today, we play some doo-wopmusic… answer a listener’s question about places in the UnitedStates called “Transylvania” … and — you’ve heard of cowboys?Come with us to a special place for cowgirls!
Cowgirl Hall of Fame
HOST:
The United States is home to many halls of fame — museums thathonor famous people. Some examples are the National Baseball Hall ofFame in Cooperstown, New York; the National Women’s Hall of Fame inSeneca Falls, New York; and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inCleveland, Ohio. Today, Shep O’Neal tells us about another hall offame, this one in Texas.
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The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame honors women of theAmerican West. It started in nineteen-seventy-five and moved to FortWorth nine years ago. It opened a new building last summer.
The National Cowgirl Museum is animportant place for experts to study the history of the women of theWestern United States. The museum includes a research library andmore than three-thousand rare pictures. Some of the women honored inthe Hall of Fame helped settle the West. Others told its story indifferent ways.
Visitors learn about the lives of women like Sacajawea, the mainIndian guide to nineteenth-century explorers Lewis and Clark. LauraIngalls Wilder, who wrote the series of “Little House on thePrairie” books. And Georgia O’Keefe, who painted the beauty of theWest.
Other areas of the museum tell about the kinds of jobs done bycowgirls. One shows cowgirls who performed in rodeos. A secondexamines the lives of women who worked on ranches. A third explainsthe cowgirl’s influence on American culture.
The Cowgirl Hall of Fame adds new members every year. Last year,it honored five modern cowgirls. One takes part in horse racing,another was a top rodeo star. The third works in the movie industry,and the fourth started the American Quarter Horse Association.
The fifth recent honoree is Supreme Court Justice Sandra DayO’Connor. She grew up on a cattle ranch in Arizona, in theSouthwest. In nineteen-eighty-one, she became the first woman tojoin the Supreme Court.
Justice O’Connor and the other women honored by the CowgirlMuseum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth, Texas, received a medal.That, along with a special pair of cowgirl boots!
Transylvania
HOST:
Our VOA listener question comes from Romania this week. JohnTripon lives in the area called Transylvania. He wants to know howsome places in the United States came to have this name, too. One isTransylvania University in the state of Kentucky. Another isTransylvania County, in North Carolina.
Transylvania — the Romanian one — is famous for the storiesabout Dracula, a local ruler hundreds of years ago. Ineighteen-ninety-seven, British author Bram Stoker wrote the book”Dracula.” This horror story, and the movies based on it, have keptthe belief alive that Dracula was a vampire.
Some people believe vampires live forever by drinking the bloodof human victims. Some history experts say the real Dracula killedmany of his enemies and may have drunk their blood. But as for beinga vampire, well …
Anyway, Transylvania simply means “the land beyond the forest.”In Latin, “trans” means “across” and “sylvania” means “woods.”
Transylvania University officials in Kentucky say the school gotits name from the area where early settlers established it. That wasin seventeen-eighty. A land company at the time called the woodedarea Transylvania. Today, that area is in the city of Lexington,Kentucky.
Transylvania County in North Carolina got its name ineighteen-sixty-one from the beautiful forests in the area. Today,two large forests lie within its borders. Pisgah National Forestcovers more than thirty-three-thousand hectares of the county. TheNantahala National Forest covers two-thousand hectares.
North Carolina officials see beyond just the trees. They pointout that Transylvania County also has more than two-hundred-fiftywaterfalls within its woods.
The Jewels and the Orioles
HOST:
The Jewels and the Orioles are two groups that began singing morethan fifty years ago. They recently performed at the Library ofCongress in Washington, D-C. Steve Ember tells us about them.
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The Jewels and the Orioles first became well-known in the latenineteen-forties. They sang a kind of popular rock and roll musiccalled “doo wop.”
The Jewels began singing when they were four high school girls inWashington, D-C. They met musician Bo Didley who helped them gettheir songs recorded. Soon soul singer James Brown invited the groupto perform with him. The Jewels have performed with the “Godfatherof Soul” throughout the United States, Canada, Jamaica and Mexico.Here they sing their hit song “Hearts of Stone.”
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Five young men in Baltimore, Maryland, formed the Orioles. Theyrecorded their first big hit in nineteen-forty-nine. “It’s Too Soonto Know” sold one-million copies.
The Orioles have appeared with other famous singers. Theseinclude the Four Tops, the Supremes, Jackie Wilson, Paul Anka, FrankSinatra and Connie Francis. In nineteen-ninety-three, they sang atPresident Clinton’s inauguration. Two years later, they were electedto the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Fifty years ago, the Orioles recorded their biggest hit, “Cryingin the Chapel.”
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You may wonder why this kind of music is called “doo wop.” It isbecause the background singers sing nonsense words to support themelody sung by the lead singer. Listen to the background singers onthis famous song, “When You Dance” by the Turbans.
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HOST:
This is Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program today.
Our program was written by Shelley Gollust and Nancy Steinbach.And our producer was Paul Thompson.
Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC — VOA’s radiomagazine in Special English.