Decatur

Alison Maria Krauss is an American bluegrass-country singer, songwriter and fiddler. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local... contests by the age of ten and recording for the first time at fourteen. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station , and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989. She has released fourteen albums, appeared on numerous soundtracks, and helped renew interest in bluegrass music in the United States. Her soundtrack performances have led to further popularity, including the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, an album also credited with raising American interest in bluegrass, and the Cold Mountain soundtrack, which led to her performance at the 2004 Academy Awards. As of 2012, she has won 27 Grammy Awards from 41 nominations, making her the most awarded living recipient, and three back of the most honoured artist, classical conductor Sir Georg Solti. She is also the most awarded singer and the most awarded female artist in Grammy history.
more

Chad Gray , is the lead vocalist for the American heavy metal bands Mudvayne and Hellyeah. Gray is the son of Dan and Mitzi Gray of Edgewater,... Florida. In Hellyeah's DVD, Below the Belt, he talks of how his grandmother, Betty Rau, raised him and would bring him to perform in choir. He quit his factory job that paid $40,000 a year to move to Peoria, Illinois and formed Mudvayne. In 2005, Gray's grandmother died after battling cancer for several years. That same year he married Kelli Olson; the couple have a home in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Gray dedicated the Hellyeah song "Thank You" to his grandmother and also wrote Mudvayne's "Death Blooms" about her illness. Gray is known both for his clean singing and trademark screams and growls. He occasionally performs on stage in gothic styled make-up. Gray has made several guest appearances with other bands, including on the songs "Monsters" by V Shape Mind, "Falling Backwards" by Bloodsimple and "Miracle" by Nonpoint.
more

Brian Culbertson is a musician and instrumentalist from Decatur, Illinois, United States. Son of jazz band director and trumpeter Jim Culbertson,... Brian's instruments include the keyboard and trombone. Heavily influenced by funk, much of Culbertson's material is funk-based instrumental, but he has begun calling upon vocalists such as Trey Lorenz, Marc Nelson, Kenny Lattimore and Avant to add to his later pieces. Culbertson has released twelve albums so far. The first three were on the Blue Moon label: "Long Night Out" 1994, "Modern Life" 1995, and "After Hours" 1996. After moving to Atlantic Records, three more albums followed: "Secrets" 1997, "Somethin' Bout Love" 1999, and the critically acclaimed "Nice & Slow" 2001. "Come on Up" 2003 was released on Warner Jazz, and Culbertson then moved to GRP Records for his project, "It's On Tonight" 2005 which debuted at #1 on Billboard Magazine's contemporary-jazz charts. Brian Culbertson also works with many other musicians in the contemporary jazz arena, often as a composer and arranger.
more

Nan Martin was an American actress who starred in movies and on television. Born in Decatur, Illinois and raised in Santa Monica, California, her... first film role was The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit . Her other film roles included The Mugger , Doctor Detroit , All of Me , A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors where she played the role of Amanda Krueger, the mother of killer Freddy Krueger. Her last film role is in 2005's Thicker than Water. Martin starred on Mr. Sunshine. Her other well-known roles were in the 1983 miniseries The Thorn Birds and on the soap opera Santa Barbara. She had a recurring role on the ABC hit TV series The Drew Carey Show as Mrs. Lauder. She made many guest appearances on various television series, some of those appearances range from Ben Casey, The Untouchables, The Twilight Zone, and Star Trek: The Next Generation as Victoria Miller in the season 1 episode "Haven", and she played Rose, the secretary of murderer Alex Brady in the Columbo television movie, Murder, Smoke and Shadows.
more

Helen Ferguson was an American actress later turned publicist. Born in Decatur, Illinois in 1901, she graduated from Nicholas High School of Chicago... and the Academy of Fine Arts. Ferguson was a newspaper reporter before entering the motion picture field. It is thought she made her debut in films in 1914, although her first recorded credits are in 1917. She soon starred in roles for Fox Film Corporation by 1920, which is when her career really took off with films such as Hungry Hearts for Samuel Goldwyn. She was cast mostly in westerns, comedies, and serials. She was selected as a WAMPAS Baby Stars in 1922. She married actor William Russell in 1925, but he died in 1929. The following year, she married wealthy banker Richard L. Hargreaves. Following her second marriage, she left films to concentrate on stage work, though she only received minimal success in this medium. In 1933, she left acting altogether to focus on publicity work, a job she became very successful in and which made her a major power in Hollywood, because she was representing such big name stars as Henry Fonda, Barbara Stanwyck, and Robert Taylor, among others.
more

June Christy , born Shirley Luster, was an American singer, known for her work in the cool jazz genre and for her silky smooth vocals. Her success as... a singer began with The Stan Kenton Orchestra. She pursued a solo career from 1954 and is best known for her debut album Something Cool. After her death, she was hailed as "one of the finest and most neglected singers of her time." Shirley Luster was born in Springfield, Illinois and moved with her family to Decatur, Illinois when she was three years old. She began to sing with the Decatur-based Bill Oetzel Orchestra at thirteen. While attending Decatur High School she appeared with Oetzel and his society band, the Ben Bradley Band, and Bill Madden's Band. After high school she moved to Chicago, changed her name to Sharon Leslie, and sang with a group led by Boyd Raeburn. Later she joined Benny Strong's band. In 1944, Strong's band moved to New York at the same time Christy was quarantined in Chicago with scarlet fever. In 1945, after hearing that Anita O'Day had left Stan Kenton's Orchestra, she auditioned and was chosen for the role as a vocalist.
more

Chad Gray , is the lead vocalist for the American heavy metal bands Mudvayne and Hellyeah. Gray is the son of Dan and Mitzi Gray of Edgewater,... Florida. In Hellyeah's DVD, Below the Belt, he talks of how his grandmother, Betty Rau, raised him and would bring him to perform in choir. He quit his factory job that paid $40,000 a year to move to Peoria, Illinois and formed Mudvayne. In 2005, Gray's grandmother died after battling cancer for several years. That same year he married Kelli Olson; the couple have a home in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Gray dedicated the Hellyeah song "Thank You" to his grandmother and also wrote Mudvayne's "Death Blooms" about her illness. Gray is known both for his clean singing and trademark screams and growls. He occasionally performs on stage in gothic styled make-up. Gray has made several guest appearances with other bands, including on the songs "Monsters" by V Shape Mind, "Falling Backwards" by Bloodsimple and "Miracle" by Nonpoint.
more

Nan Martin was an American actress who starred in movies and on television. Born in Decatur, Illinois and raised in Santa Monica, California, her... first film role was The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit . Her other film roles included The Mugger , Doctor Detroit , All of Me , A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors where she played the role of Amanda Krueger, the mother of killer Freddy Krueger. Her last film role is in 2005's Thicker than Water. Martin starred on Mr. Sunshine. Her other well-known roles were in the 1983 miniseries The Thorn Birds and on the soap opera Santa Barbara. She had a recurring role on the ABC hit TV series The Drew Carey Show as Mrs. Lauder. She made many guest appearances on various television series, some of those appearances range from Ben Casey, The Untouchables, The Twilight Zone, and Star Trek: The Next Generation as Victoria Miller in the season 1 episode "Haven", and she played Rose, the secretary of murderer Alex Brady in the Columbo television movie, Murder, Smoke and Shadows.
more

Jenny Lou Carson, , born Virginia Lucille Overstake, was an American country music singer-songwriter and the first woman to write a No. 1 country... music hit. From 1945 to 1955 she was one of the most prolific songwriters in country music. The second of six children of Herschel Jewel Overstake and Helen Elizabeth Nalefski, she was born in Decatur, Illinois. She was raised in Decatur in modest surroundings. She learned to work early in life and was expected to do chores around the house. Her father had a strict, no-nonsense personality who instilled a strong work ethic and a fierce win-at-any-cost sense of competition in his children. In her adult life she rarely spoke of her early days to any of her friends or business associates, other than to occasionally remark, "You don't need friends if you've got your family with you." Carson began her professional music career at age 17 in 1932, performing with her sisters Evelyn and Eva Alaine Overstake as the Three Little Maids on WLS-AM's National Barn Dance in Chicago. Carson also performed briefly as Winnie in the trio Winnie, Lou, and Sally .
more

John Doe is an American singer, songwriter, actor, poet, guitarist and bass player. Doe founded the much-praised L.A. punk band X, of which he is... still an active member. His musical performances and compositions span the rock, country and folk music genres. As an actor, he has dozens of television appearances and several movies to his credit, including the role of Jeff Parker in the television series Roswell. In addition to X, Doe performs with the country-folk-punk band The Knitters and has released records as a solo artist. In the early 1980s, he performed on two albums by The Flesh Eaters. In the 1989 biopic Great Balls of Fire!, Doe played Jerry Lee Lewis's cousin-turned-father-in-law J. W. Brown. He starred in the 1992 film Roadside Prophets and in the 1998 short Lone Greasers. Other movie acting credits include Road House, Vanishing Point, Salvador, Boogie Nights, The Specials, The Good Girl, Gypsy 83 and Pure Country.
more

Kerri Lee Randles is an American actress, writer and producer. Randles was born in Decatur, Illinois, the daughter of Virginia, a secretary, and... Terry, a business owner. She attended the University of Illinois at Chicago with an art scholarship but soon switched her major to Theatre. She studied theatre at Victory Gardens with Steven Ivcich and was part of improv with Mick Napier at the Annoyance Theater. She worked on John Hughes' films, Home Alone and Curly Sue as an extra, before earning a chance to audition in Hollywood for Roseanne. Randles' first break came in 1993 when Oliver Stone gave her a bit part in Heaven & Earth, earning Kerri her Screen Actors Guild card. Her first supporting role came in 1994 when she played Missy in the Showtime Rebel Highway series, Jailbreakers, directed by William Friedkin. Subsequent roles after that included Marilyn Monroe, in Introducing Dorothy Dandridge for HBO, directed by Martha Coolidge, Poor White Trash, and Scenes of the Crime. She recently worked with Angelina Jolie on Clint Eastwood's, Changeling.
more

David Joyner is an actor and producer.