Boardwalk Empire Volume 2: Music From The HBO Original Series - Paying Homage to Sounds from the Prohibition Era

This September, luminaries from across the music world are paying homage to the sounds of the Prohibition Era with the ABKCO Records release of 'Boardwalk Empire Volume 2: Music From The HBO® Original Series.' The soundtrack features all new recordings from a wide range of vocalists - from Elvis Costello and Patti Smith to St. Vincent and The National's Matt Berninger - singing timeless standards and forgotten gems from the 1920s. Season 4 of the hit HBO series premiered on September 8th.

Following up on their GRAMMY win for Volume 1, producer Stewart Lerman and Boardwalk Empire music supervisor Randall Poster bring together a swinging, sauntering collection of big-band classics, New Orleans rags, sultry ballads and torch songs. Album highlights include Costello crooning "It Had To Be You," Liza Minnelli belting out "You've Got To See Mama Ev'ry Night (Or You Can't See Mama At All)," Berninger lending his rugged baritone to "I'll See You In My Dreams," and Neko Case breathing new life into "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out." Featuring inimitable contributions from high-profile recording artists including Rufus Wainwright, Loudon Wainwright III, St. Vincent and David Johansen, Poster has created an album that retains a remarkable cohesion with the series and with the music of the 1920s.

Poster, a frequent music supervisor for renowned directors including Martin Scorsese, Wes Anderson and Sam Mendes, stated, "Boardwalk Empire provides an incredible back drop for music. It's been a steady treat to mark the passing of time in song over the course of four seasons," said series music supervisor Randall Poster. "Terry Winters, Martin Scorsese and the entire Boardwalk Empire team inspire the sound of the episodes as we move from the streets and alleys of Atlantic City to the smoky rooms of Al Capone's Chicago and on down into the tropics of Florida. This compilation celebrates the mastery of all the artists involved."

With instrumentation recorded by Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks - the NYC jazz ensemble and Boardwalk Empire house band - the album also includes performances by cast members Stephen DeRosa (as song-and-dance man Eddie Cantor) and Margot Bingham (as a new character to be introduced this fall) singing tracks that will be debuted throughout the new season.

BOARDWALK EMPIRE VOLUME 2 TRACK LIST

1. David Johansen - Strut Miss Lizzie
2. Stephen DeRosa - Old King Tut
3. Elvis Costello - It Had To Be You
4. Vince Giordano & the Nighthawks - Everybody Loves My Baby
5. Liza Minnelli - You've Got To See Mama Ev'ry Night (Or You Can't See Mama At All)
6. Leon Redbone - Baby Won't You Please Come Home
7. St. Vincent - Make Believe
8. Pokey LaFarge - Lovesick Blues
9. Neko Case - Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out
10. Karen Elson - Who's Sorry Now
11. Stephan DeRosa - You'd Be Surprised
12. Margot Bingham - I'm Going South
13. Vince Giordano & the Nighthawks - Sugarfoot Stomp
14. Rufus Wainwright - Jimbo Jambo
15. Kathy Brier - There'll Be Some Changes Made
16. Margot Bingham - Somebody Loves Me
17. Chaim Tannenbaum - All Alone
18. Loudon Wainwright III - The Prisoner's Song
19. Patti Smith - I Ain't Got Nobody
20. Matt Berninger - I'll See You In My Dreams
*All tracks featuring Vince Giordano & the Nighthawks

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Gary Allen's "None Dare Call It Conspiracy" Has Been Updated in a Special Edition for 2013

In 1972, Gary Allen wrote with Larry Abraham None Dare Call It Conspiracy (prefaced by Congressmen John G. Schmitz), a best seller which achieved sales of over five million copies worldwide during the United States presidential election.[7]

In this book, Congressmen John G. Schmitz says in the Introduction, "The story you are about to read is true." Allen goes on to assert that the present political and economic systems in most developed nations are the result of a sweeping conspiracy by the Establishment's power elite, which started in the early 1900s. According to this theory, this has been a four-step process:

1. Establish an income tax system as a means of extorting money from the common man;
2. Establish a central bank, deceptively named so that people will think it is part of the government;
3. Have this bank be the holder of the national debt;
4. Run the national debt, and the interest thereon, sky high through wars (or any sort of deficit spending), starting with World War I.[8]

He quotes the Council on Foreign Relations as having stated, in its study no. 7 : ”The U.S. must strive to: A. BUILD A NEW INTERNATIONAL ORDER.” (Capitals in the original).[9]

This book is a primer for anyone who wishes to understand the basic workings of the global network of Insiders that is determined to wield power over all of mankind in the coming New World Order. The Special Edition is updated with illustrations and charts for 2013.

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Today is 9/11, What Good Deed Will You Do Today?

Dear Friends,

Today is the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Our hearts are with the victims' families, the survivors, first responders, recovery workers, and our military and their families.

Please join us in paying tribute to all of them by doing a special good deed today.

Consider making a donation perhaps, like purchasing needed school supplies for your child’s class, or scheduling time to give blood. Think about how you might volunteer your time and talents in your community. Bake cupcakes for a local fire or police station. Or look into adopting a pet from a local animal shelter. Reconnect with a relative you haven’t seen or spoken with in a while. Take your children to visit their grandparents. Or simply buy someone a cup of coffee.

It’s really up to you.

We hope you’ll visit our Facebook/911day page, read what others are doing, and share your own good deeds with us. Or post your plans on our website at 911day.org if you haven’t already done so.

We wish you all the best today, and we thank you for making 9/11 this nation’s largest annual day of charitable service.

God bless the victims and heroes of 9/11 and their families!

Your friends,

David Paine, Co-Founder & Jay Winuk, Co-Founder

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Graham Greene's #TheQuietAmerican Classic Novel about a CIA Agent Who Creates a Puppet Government

"I never knew a man who had better motives for all the trouble he caused," Graham Greene's narrator Fowler remarks of Alden Pyle, the eponymous "Quiet American" of what is perhaps the most controversial novel of his career. Pyle is the brash young idealist sent out by Washington on a mysterious mission to Saigon, where the French Army struggles against the Vietminh guerrillas.

As young Pyle's well-intentioned policies blunder into bloodshed, Fowler, a seasoned and cynical British reporter, finds it impossible to stand safely aside as an observer. But Fowler's motives for intervening are suspect, both to the police and himself, for Pyle has stolen Fowler's beautiful Vietnamese mistress.

Originally published in 1956 and twice adapted to film, The Quiet American remains a terrifiying and prescient portrait of innocence at large. This Graham Greene Centennial Edition includes a new introductory essay by Robert Stone.

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"The Quiet Don: The Untold Story of Russell Bufalino, the Mob's Most Fearsome Kingpin" Investigates Former Gov. Ed Rendell's Involvement with Awarding Lucrative Casino Licenses in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania state police ran a top-secret investigation into whether then-Gov. Ed Rendell and his administration rigged the outcome of the casino licensing process to benefit favored applicants, including a wealthy and politically connected businessman suspected of having mob ties, a new book asserts. But the probe failed to lead to criminal charges against anyone in the administration or on the state gambling board, and prosecutors blamed the state Supreme Court for thwarting the investigation, according to "The Quiet Don," a forthcoming book by Matt Birkbeck that also serves as the first full-length biography of reclusive northeastern Pennsylvania mob boss Russell Bufalino.

Birkbeck covered the troubled beginnings of Pennsylvania's casino industry as a newspaper reporter, and here he pieces together the yearslong effort by state police and local prosecutors to probe whether corruption was involved in the awarding of the lucrative casino licenses.

The narrative emerges from interviews with dozens of participants, including now-retired Lt. Col. Ralph Periandi, the No. 2 official in the Pennsylvania State Police.

Periandi initiated the probe in 2005 because he suspected that "Rendell, members of his administration and others in state government might be trying to control the new gaming industry in Pennsylvania," Birkbeck writes.

Rendell did not return a call for comment. He has long denied any impropriety.

The book follows Periandi and his small, secret "Black Ops" team of covert investigators as they dig into the gambling board, the Rendell administration and Louis DeNaples, a powerful northeastern Pennsylvania businessman who'd been awarded a casino license despite questions about his suitability.

DeNaples was eventually charged with perjury in January 2008 for allegedly lying to state gambling regulators about whether he had connections to Bufalino - the titular "quiet don" - and other mob figures. Prosecutors later dropped the charges in an agreement that required DeNaples to turn over Mount Airy Casino Resort to his daughter. DeNaples has long denied any ties to the mob.

Dauphin County District Attorney Ed Marsico agreed to the DeNaples deal because "the Supreme Court had interfered in his case twice already, and he feared that no matter what he did, the court would see to it that the DeNaples prosecution would never move forward," Birkbeck writes.

The author said investigators "basically stepped on a bee's nest" when they went after DeNaples.

Chief Justice Ronald Castille did not return a call placed to his office. He has rejected similar allegations about Supreme Court interference in the gambling industry as ludicrous, slanderous and irresponsible.

"The Quiet Don" traces Bufalino's ascent to mob boss, including his role in organizing the infamous 1957 meeting of Mafia leaders in Apalachin, N.Y., his control of the garment industry in New York and Philadelphia, and his control of the Teamsters union and its leader, Jimmy Hoffa.

The book asserts that it was Bufalino who ordered a hit on Hoffa, a claim also made in the 2004 Mafia memoir "I Heard You Paint Houses," in which confessed mob hitman Frank Sheeran said he killed Hoffa on Bufalino's say-so. Hoffa disappeared in 1975; his body has never been found.

What's new here is the reason: Birkbeck writes Bufalino was upset by a 1975 Time magazine article that linked him, for the first time, to the CIA's attempts to enlist the Mafia to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and he feared Hoffa would tell Senate investigators what he knew about the failed plot.

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