Amy Barbera's iHeartRadio Station

http://www.iheart.com/artist/Amy-Barbera-324476/

John Schneider - Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

John Schneider, born in 1949 in Fort Lauderdale, FL, almost immediately started playing his Elvis guitar from morning to night as a child. After taking a few guitar lessons, John, found even more joy in hammering out notes on the grand piano in his grandmother's home.

Later, he started playing drums and started his own band, "The Electric Harpoons," which played in South Florida's first so-called Love-In.

  John's family owned a nationally-recognized amusement park (which was on the cover of LIFE magazine) and so John was continually surrounded by actors and celebrities.

Soon, the acting bug bit him and he was taking parts in every play in the community, high school and college that he could get his hands on. After graduating from a junior college in Palm Beach, Burt Reynolds provided John with a college scholarship to pursue his acting career.

Before long, he was attending the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City while the William Morris Agency was sending him out on auditions. John took several parts in plays, but Burt Reynolds was instrumental in producing a short film, "The Eighth Daffodil," and John soon stepped into to take the lead role. Later in his musical and acting career, John started directing plays and producing short films. Musically, he continued to produce his own orignal songs and played live in a variety of venues. Today, John lives at the Jersey Shore and performs frequently at local venues.

 Recently, he played at Jon Bon Jovi's restaurant, "Soul Kitchen," in Red Bank, NJ. He also produced a song and music video called "Everybody's Gonna Go" to support the Jersey Shore's relief efforts John also founded two companies: Original Music Factory which produces musical soundtracks and CreateAVision Media whch produces documentary and promotional films. Whenever possible, John is also a substitute teacher at the local high school and volunteers to help the local communities. People say I sing and play "lovin' country music with a lick of the rockin' devil." I guess that's true!

 I do love country music, but I have a deep-rooted need to put a little edge in my music once in a while. I have to thank Garth Brooks who challenged me when he became the rocker "Chris Gaines" and so I had to do the same thing just to show him he wasn't the only one who could do it. That's why I created "John Nicole" and produced a few albums under the pseudonym. Meanwhile, Music Reviewer Zack Daggy says I have a rich smooth-toned voice wiht the charismatic quality of Bono.

 I don't know what he's been drinking, but I appreciate the complement. I'll let you be the judge as you listen to "Country Free." "Country Free" is my fifth or sixth album and I'm proud of it. Yes, there are a few familiar tunes which I've remixed, but hopefully I made everything sound a bit better. I'm just so grateful for the folks who are listening to the ablum, paying for it and then letting me know how they feel. "Happy Life" is one of my all-time favorite tunes! I surprised even myself when it was first written. It has a nice feel to it and Laura Baron sings it so sweetly with me. Her career just seems to be taking off and I'm happy for her.

 Nadia Fauteaux from Memphis, TN, also does an incredible job with our duet of "Love Me Tender." I've never heard the song as a duet, but it seems to work well. Hope you like it, too. Nadia also sings in French on the song "Beyond Words (Au-Dela des Mots)" and I think she'll become an international sensation if she plays her cards right. Of course, I do sing some standards like "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and I certainly hope Mr. Zimmerman likes what I did to his great song. He's such a legend.

 I was also privileged to have one of Chuck Berry's piano players, Daryl Davis, perform on my rendition of "Johnny B. Goode." Of course, I also played along with him on my own keyboard, but he was much better than me! I'm also extremely happy Karen Oliver saddled up to sing with me on a little story-tellin' song, "Take Me Home." She's provided lots of backup vocals in the past and this time she's stepped a little closer to the microphone. Nice job, Karen.

 There are some more original and cover tunes in this album and most of them are just sort of calm and easy going. There's nothing too edgy on the album except maybe "Play Ground," which has more of a darker theme than I normally write or sing about.

Well, that's about it. I'm grateful that you listen to my music. And I appreciate the opportunity to play around once in a while. Hopefully, it's keepin' me young just like Garth Brooks.

 John Schneider

George Stinney, Black Boy Executed in 1944 to get a New Trial - Why? He's Dead

. COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Supporters of a 14-year-old black boy executed in 1944 for killing two white girls are asking a South Carolina judge to take the unheard-of move of granting him a new trial in hopes he will be cleared of the charges. George Stinney was convicted on a shaky confession in a segregated society that wanted revenge for the beating deaths of two girls, ages 11 and 7, according to the lawsuit filed last month on Stinney's behalf in Clarendon County.

 The request for a new trial has an uphill climb. The judge may refuse to hear it at all, since the punishment was already carried out. Also, South Carolina has strict rules for introducing new evidence after a trial is complete, requiring the information to have been impossible to discover before the trial and likely to change the results, said Kenneth Gaines, a professor at the University of South Carolina's law school. "I think it's a longshot, but I admire the lawyer for trying it," Gaines said, adding that he's not aware of any other executed inmates in the state being granted a new trial posthumously.

 The request for a new trial is largely symbolic, but Stinney's supporters say they would prefer exoneration to a pardon. Stinney's case intersects some long-running disputes in the American legal system — the death penalty and race. At 14, he's the youngest person executed in the United States in past 100 years. He was electrocuted just 84 days after the girls were killed in March 1944.

 The request for a new trial includes sworn statements from two of Stinney's siblings who say he was with them the entire day the girls were killed. Notes from Stinney's confession and most other information deputies and prosecutors used to convict Stinney in a one-day trial have disappeared along with any transcript of the proceedings. Only a few pages of cryptic, hand-written notes remain, according to the motion. "Why was George Stinney electrocuted?

The state can't produce any paperwork to justify why he was," said George Frierson, a local school board member who grew up in Stinney's hometown hearing stories about the case and decided six years ago to start studying it and pushing for exoneration. The South Carolina Attorney General's Office will likely argue the other side of the case before the Clarendon County judge. A spokesman said their lawyers had not seen the motion and do not comment on pending cases. A date for a hearing on the matter has not been set. The girls were last seen looking for wildflowers in the tiny, racially-divided mill town of Alcolu about 50 miles southeast of Columbia. Stinney's sister, who was 7 at the time, said in her new affidavit that she and her brother were letting their cow graze when the girls asked them where they could find flowers called maypops.

The sister, Amie Ruffner, said her brother told them he didn't know and the girls left. "It was strange to see them in our area, because white people stayed on their side of Alcolu and we knew our place," Ruffner wrote. The girls never came home and hundreds of people searched for them through the night. They were found the next morning in a water-filled ditch, their heads beaten with a hard object, likely a railroad spike. Deputies got a tip the girls had been seen talking to Stinney.

They came to Stinney's home and took him away. His family wouldn't see the boy again until after his trial. Newspaper accounts suggested a lynch mob was nearly formed to attack the teen in jail. Stinney's dad worked for the major mill in town and lived in a company house. He was ordered to leave after his son was arrested, said Stinney's brother Charles Stinney, who was 12 when his older brother was arrested. Charles Stinney's statement explains why the family didn't speak to authorities at the time. "George's conviction and execution was something my family believed could happen to any of us in the family.

Therefore, we made a decision for the safety of the family to leave it be," Charles Stinney wrote in his sworn statement. Charles Stinney said he remembered the events vividly because "for my family, Friday, March 24, 1944, and the events that followed were our personal 9/11." Both statements were made in 2009. Lawyer Steve McKenzie said he planned to file the request for a new trial then, but heard from a man in Tennessee who claimed his grandfather was with George Stinney the day of the killings.

McKenzie thought the information from someone not related to Stinney would be especially powerful, but the person suddenly stopped cooperating after stringing the lawyers along for years. The request for a new trial points out that at 95 pounds, Stinney likely couldn't have killed the girls and dragged them to the ditch. The motion also hints at community rumors of a deathbed confession from a white man several years ago and the possibility Stinney either confessed because his family was threatened or he was given ice cream. But the court papers provide little information and the lawyers also wouldn't elaborate.

 At 14, Stinney was the youngest person executed in this country in the past 100 years, according to statistics gathered by the Death Penalty Information Center. Newspaper stories from his execution had witnesses saying the straps to keep him in the electric chair didn't fit around his small frame and an electrode was too big for his leg. Executing teens wasn't uncommon at that time.

Florida put a 16-year-old boy to death for rape in 1944 and Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio and Texas executed 17-year-olds that year. Lawyers also filed a request for to pardon Stinney before the state Department of Probation, Parole and Pardon Services in case the new trial is not granted. There is precedent for that. In 2009, two great-uncles of syndicated radio host Tom Joyner were pardoned by the board nearly 100 years after they were sent to the electric chair in the death of a Confederate Army veteran.

 Joyner's lawyers showed evidence the men were framed by a small-time criminal who took a plea deal that saved his life and testified against them. But Frierson said a pardon would be little comfort to him in the Stinney case. "The first step in a pardon is to admit you are wrong and ask for forgiveness. This boy did nothing wrong," Frierson said.

TOP 10 STATES WITH HIGHEST TEEN PREGNANCY BIRTH RATE 2013

By EditorALW

Lindsay Lohan acts as if she is having sex during a photoshoot. Not really appropriate.  And smoking in bed!


The study focused on 1,000 pregnant teens aged 15-19 per state. The following data is based on teen pregnancy birth rate report that was recently made available by the Guttmacher report.

1. Mississippi – 64/1,000
Sex education wasn’t high on the priority list in Mississippi. But lawmakers in this number one state with the highest teen pregnancy birth rate have allowed not only sex education in schools, but abstinence classes as well.

2. New Mexico – 61/1,000
New Mexico also ranks in the top 50 when it comes to poverty and crime. While you can’t solely blame poverty and crime for teens getting pregnant, they are definitely contributing factors.

3. Texas – 61/1,000
Star state high teen pregnancy birth rate. According to the Pregnancy Resource Center, 30 pregnant teens come in per month.

4. Arkansas – 60/1,000
In the south many of the sex-education programs are abstinence-based due to the high pregnancy rates. Teens don’t need to be told what not to do, but need more preventative options.

5. Oklahoma – 58/1,000
Oklahoma ranks ninth in highest teen pregnancy rates and a few spots higher in number of births.

6. Arizona – 54/1,000
Pregnancy rates have actually gone down in the desert state. According to the government report from 2007-2010, rates have gone down 29 percent. The decline is attributed to prevention programs.

7. Louisiana – 54/1,000
This southern state is so fed up with teen pregnancy, that some schools have even banned teens from attending classes if they become pregnant.

8. Kentucky 53/1,000
Initiatives put into placed has slowed down this state’s teen pregnancy rate, but According to data released by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) Kentucky remains 10 points over the national rate.

9. Tennessee – 52/1,000
While the nation was buzzing about the 17 teens that got pregnant at the same time in Massachusetts, a whopping 90 teens in both middle and high school combined got pregnant in Tennessee.

10. South Carolina – 51/1,000
Reportedly, the state’s tax payers had to shell out $197 million annually for these births.

Read more at http://americanlivewire.com/top-10-states-with-highest-teen-pregnancy-birth-rate/