Pestaño: Patti Page and other stars who play chess

Chessmoso

Friday, January 11, 2013

I GREW up with her music. Patti Page, 85, one of the greatest entertainers of all time, passed away a few days ago after a career that span almost seven decades and close to 1,000 recordings.

She was famous for the immortal hit “Tennessee Waltz,” her signature song, and other monster hits such as “(how much is that) Doggie in the window” ,“I went to your wedding,” and “Mockin Bird Hill.”

It seems that pop stars and chess get along well. Here are some singers that play chess.

ohn Lennon and Ringo Starr of the Beatles were avid chess players On the promo video of the song “Imagine” John and wife Yoko played chess with both playing white to symbolize peace and love.

Ringo Starr designed a chess-set in the shape of human hands, Frank Sinatra was also known as the “Chairman of the (chess) Board”.

Madonna actually can be seen playing chess in a couple of her music videos. In fact, Madonna is so incredibly serious about chess that she and former husband, Guy Ritchie, actually had taken chess lessons from Scottish chess champion Alan Norris.

Sting and his band The Police played a charity match in New York in 2000 against World Champion Garry Kasparov.

Here is a discussion between U2 frontman Bono and Bob Dylan. Bono: do you play chess? Dylan: Yeah, I play chess. Are you a chess player? Bono: I am a chess player.

Singers Helen Reddy and Graham Nash participated in the 1988 Celebrity chess tournament in Los Angeles in 1988.

The Bobby Darin Chess Classic was held in 1973 and attracted some of the best players in the world with a prize fund of $25,000.

David Bowie’s love of chess is well documented; he has a picture playing chess with his The Hunger co-star, Catherine Deneuve.

Although blind, some grandmasters have estimated Ray Charles elo rating to be around 1800. During his funeral, his manager Joe Adams told country singer Willie Nelson, “Willie, I think this is a good time to tell the people that you’re in a good position now to beat Ray in a chess game.”

Nelson laughed and said, “I sure couldn’t do it before.”

Fats Domino invited Bobby Charles, also a composer, to a show in New Orleans. The young singer said he had no way to get there. “Well,” the fat man said, “You’d better start walking.” And sure enough, a song popped into Charles’ head: “Walking To New
Orleans.” Fats was a strong player.

Singers and chess players Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond were classmates of Bobby Fischer in grade school. Barbra taught Bobby how to play the guitar, Bobby taught Neil how to write songs and Neil taught Barbra how to play chess--although it’s a little bit mixed up.

Chess is a musical play that became a worldwide phenomenon composed by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaues (Abba) with lyrics by Tim Rice. All of them play chess, including Elaine Paige.

Elaine Paige (OBE) is an English singer and actress best known for her work in musical theatre-Evita, Cats, Sunset Boulevard, The King and I and Chess the Musical..

Singer-actress Jessica Simpson and rocker Billy Corgan, who have refused to confirm speculations they are dating, are reportedly obsessed with playing chess against one another.

Rappers who play chess are LL COOL J, Jay-Z, DJ Green Lantern, Ludacris, Nelly, Sticky Fingaz and Wu-Tang Clan.

Sinulog. There will be a Sinulog tournament tomorrow and Sunday at Colonnade Mall that will be played in two formats. There will be a prize of P25,000 for standard chess and P7,000 for Infinitum chess, a variant invented by Bogie Lim who is also sponsoring the tournament. It is held in coordination with the Cebu City Sports Commission and Department of Education.

Tournament starts at 10am. For details contact Roger Abella-09102686890, boypestano@gmail.com,www.chessmoso.blogspot.com.