title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On March 10, 2006, Cantrell, Inez and Kinney performed at VH1's Decades Rock Live concert, honoring fellow Seattle musicians Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart. They played "Would?" with vocalist Phil Anselmo of Pantera and Down and bass player Duff McKagan of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver, then they played "Rooster" with Ann Wilson and Comes with the Fall vocalist William DuVall. The band followed the concert with a short United States club tour, several festival dates in Europe, and a brief tour in Japan. To coincide with the band's reunion, Sony Music released the long-delayed third Alice in Chains compilation, "The Essential Alice in Chains", a double album that includes 28 songs.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Between 2006 and 2007, Cantrell played in a number of concerts with Alice in Chains featuring guest lead singers such as Ann Wilson, Mark Lanegan, James Hetfield, Phil Anselmo, Billy Corgan, Scott Weiland Sebastian Bach, and William DuVall. Although Cantrell acknowledges the benefits of working as a solo artist, he expressed his happiness with being back in the band culture.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell explained the band's reunion saying, "We want to celebrate what we did and the memory of our friend. We have played with some [singers] who can actually bring it and add their own thing to it without being a Layne clone. We're not interested in stepping on [Staley's] rich legacy. It's a tough thing to go through. Do you take the Led Zeppelin approach and never play again, because the guy was that important? That's the approach we've taken for a lot of years. Or, do you give it a shot, try something? We're willing to take a chance on it. It's completely a reunion because the three of us who're left are back together. But it's not about separating and forgetting — it's about remembering and moving on."


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell met singer William DuVall in Los Angeles in 2000, through a mutual acquaintance who introduced him to


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: the first album of DuVall's band, Comes with the Fall. Cantrell started hanging out with the band and occasionally joining them onstage. Comes with the Fall was both the opening act on Cantrell's tour for his second solo album, "Degradation Trip", and also the singer's backing band, with DuVall singing Staley's parts at the concerts in 2001 and 2002. DuVall joined Alice in Chains as full-time lead singer during the band's reunion tour in 2006, after making his first public appearance with the band at the VH1 concert.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: By April 2007, Alice in Chains had been writing and demoing songs for a new album with DuVall, but the band did not show further signs of progress until October 2008, when they announced that they had begun recording with producer Nick Raskulinecz in the studio. The band didn't have a record label at the time and the album was funded by Cantrell and drummer Sean Kinney. The writing and recording process was completed on March 18, 2009 – Cantrell's 43rd birthday and also the same day that DuVall's son was born.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: About the pressure being put on DuVall for replacing Staley as lead vocalist, Cantrell said, "To put all that weight on Will's shoulders is unfair. We're just figuring out how we work as a team. Although the band has changed, we've lost Layne, we've added Will, and there was no master plan. Playing again in 2005 felt right, so we did the next thing and toured. We did it step by step. It's more than just making music, and it always has been. We've been friends a long time. We've been more of a family than most, and it had to be okay from here", Cantrell said pointing to his heart.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On September 29, 2009, Alice in Chains released their first record since the death of Layne Staley, "Black Gives Way to Blue", and toured in support of the album. The album includes songs which Cantrell described as "the heaviest he's ever written", and has Cantrell singing lead vocals on most of the songs and William DuVall as co-lead vocalist. The title track is a tribute to Layne Staley written and sung by Cantrell, accompanied by Elton John playing piano. In the months before writing the song, Cantrell had been suffering from an unexplained illness. Cantrell believes the mystery illness was the pain of saying goodbye to Staley. He told "Guitar World", "I got deathly ill. I had these mystery migraines, intense physical pain, and I'd even gotten a spinal tap to test for certain things. They never could find anything wrong with me. I felt I was puking up all this undigested grief in losing Layne." Once Cantrell started writing the song and the rest of the album, his mystery illness disappeared. Cantrell, Mike Inez and Sean Kinney also thanked Staley in the album's liner notes. The album was certified Gold by the RIAA in May 2010,


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: The band released their fifth studio album, "The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here", on May 28, 2013, and Cantrell continued his role of main singer in the album. The album debuted at No. 2 on the "Billboard" 200 (the band's highest chart position since 1995's "Alice in Chains", which debuted at No. 1), selling 61,000 copies in its first week of release.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In June 2017, Alice in Chains returned to Seattle's Studio X to record their sixth studio album. Studio X was the same studio where the band recorded their self-titled album, "Alice in Chains" (1995), Recording was completed in January 2018. On June 27, 2018, the band announced the title and unveiled the cover art of the new album, "Rainier Fog", released on August 24, 2018 through BMG, Alice in Chains' first release on the label. Cantrell took the album's title from the Mount Rainier in Seattle, and the title track is a tribute to the Seattle music scene.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: As part of the promotion of "Rainier Fog", the baseball team Seattle Mariners hosted an "Alice in Chains Night" at the Safeco Field in Seattle on August 20, 2018, and Cantrell threw out the ceremonial first pitch and delivered a strike before the Mariners vs. Houston Astros game.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: As of 2018, Alice in Chains has had 18 Top 10 songs on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, 5 No. 1 hits, and eleven Grammy Award nominations.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell's career outside Alice in Chains has consisted of three solo albums, as well as many appearances with other musicians and on film soundtracks. His first solo material was the song "Leave Me Alone", released exclusively on "The Cable Guy" soundtrack in 1996, featuring Alice in Chains drummer Sean Kinney on drums and Cantrell on lead vocals, guitar and bass. It had a music video, which was included as a bonus feature on the 15th anniversary edition Blu-Ray of "The Cable Guy" in 2011, and the song reached No. 14 on "Billboard"'s Mainstream Rock Tracks. In the same year, Cantrell covered Willie Nelson's "I've Seen All This World I Care to See" for the album "Twisted Willie: A Tribute to Willie Nelson". As the activity of Alice in Chains slowed and the band's future came into question, Cantrell reluctantly began work on his first full-length solo record. While video footage from Cantrell's official website claimed that he wanted to work solo for some time, his comments in "Guitar World" stated otherwise:


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell's debut solo album, "Boggy Depot", was released on April 7, 1998, and published by Cantrell's "Boggy Bottom Publishing" company. The title comes from the ghost town of the same name in Oklahoma, which is the area that Cantrell's father grew up in. The album cover shows Cantrell covered in mud standing waist-deep in a branch of the Boggy River. Besides singing, Cantrell also played guitar, piano, clavinet, organ, and steel drums on the album. The tracks "Cut You In", "My Song" and "Dickeye" were released as singles to promote the album. Cantrell's father played the sheriff in the music video for "Cut You In".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: His touring band for the album included Alice in Chains bandmates Inez and Kinney, and Cantrell expressed hope to have a second album released by the following year. Cantrell opened for Metallica and Van Halen on their 1998 summer tour. The same year of "Boggy Depot", Cantrell began writing a follow-up album. He also departed from Columbia Records during this time and had trouble finding a new label. Cantrell said of the writing experience:


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In 1998, Layne Staley almost performed live again since Alice in Chains' last concert in July 1996, when Cantrell went to Seattle on his solo tour for "Boggy Depot". It was Halloween night and Staley was backstage as a guest. Cantrell reportedly asked Staley to join him onstage, but Staley declined.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell started recording a follow-up to "Boggy Depot" in 2000. He was also living in San Francisco during that period. He had to sell his Seattle house to fund the album and produced it himself. Finally in June 2002, Cantrell issued his second solo album, "Degradation Trip," with Ozzy Osbourne's then live rhythm section, Mike Bordin (drums) and Robert Trujillo (bass). Released on Roadrunner Records, "Degradation Trip" hit shelves two months after Layne Staley's death and was dedicated to him. The songs on the album ranged from doom metal to pop-based hard rock. The album, which received better critical reception than its predecessor, featured two singles, "Anger Rising" and "Angel Eyes", and the track "She Was My Girl" was included on the "Spider-Man" soundtrack.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: "Degradation Trip" has sold 100,000 copies in the U.S. as of December 2002. The live show was well received by audiences on a national tour that helped build upon the solo album's success. "Degradation Trip" was re-released in November 2002 as a double album, featuring eleven additional tracks that were made for the album as Cantrell originally intended. In the Spring of 2004, Cantrell opened a slate of shows on Kid Rock's U.S. tour.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell has been rumored to be working on his third full-length solo album for several years, for a supposedly planned release in 2006. However, this album still has not been released. Subsequent work with the revamped Alice in Chains may have stalled this release. When asked about releasing another solo album, he issued this statement in 2010:


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In November 2014, during an interview on radio 95.5 KLOS, Cantrell was asked if he had any plans on doing more solo work, to which he replied: "I don't know. Maybe somewhere down the road. The only reason I ever did anything by my own was because my band wasn't really doing anything. My band has been doing things lately, so I don't really have time to do anything. I kinda focus my energy there [in the band]. Of course, you know, possibilities..." Cantrell expressed the same sentiment when asked about a new solo album during an interview with Trunk Nation in August 2017, stating that Alice in Chains has always been his number one concern, but that he would not rule out a new solo album in the future.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In February 2017, Cantrell released his first solo song in 15 years, "A Job to Do", featured during the end credits of the movie "". On February 6, 2019, Cantrell performed a two-song acoustic set for BMG's Pre-Grammy Party at the No Name bar in Los Angeles.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On December 6 and 7, 2019, Cantrell performed two sold-out solo concerts at the Pico Union Project in Los Angeles. His first solo concerts since 2004. Cantrell performed his solo material along with Alice in Chains' songs and covers of other artists such as Elton John and Creedence Clearwater Revival. He was joined by Greg Puciato and Terra Lopez on vocals, Tyler Bates on guitar, Johnny Scaglione on acoustic guitar, James Lomenzo on bass, Gil Sharone on drums, Jordan Lewis on keyboards and Michael Rozon on pedal steel guitar.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On January 24, 2020, Cantrell announced that he was working on a new solo album. He started recording at Dave's Room Recording Studio in North Hollywood, California on March 10, 2020. On March 4, 2021, he announced via his Instagram page that he had completed the album, captioning the photo "Finished my record tonight one year to the day from when we started recording it. What a crazy journey ... always is. Look forward to setting it free upon your ear holes sometime soon." On July 28, 2021, Cantrell posted a teaser trailer in his social media announcing that a new song and video titled "Atone" would be released on July 29. Cantrell's third solo album is titled "Brighten" and was released on October 29, 2021.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell has appeared as guest guitarist on several albums and projects, including the Danzig album "Blackacidevil" (1996), in which he played on three tracks ("See All You Were", "Come to Silver" and "Hand of Doom"), and the Metallica album "Garage Inc." (1998) on the band's rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Tuesday's Gone". He also guested on Circus of Power's 1993 album "Magic & Madness" for the song "Heaven & Hell", played lead guitar on Metal Church's "Gods of a Second Chance" from their 1993 album "Hanging in the Balance", and played on the track "Marry Me" from Pigeonhed's 1997 album, "The Full Sentence".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell provided background vocals for the track "Effigy" on Gov't Mule's 2001 album, "The Deep End, Volume 1". He also appears briefly with Warren Haynes in the documentary "Rising Low", which documents the work of the band Gov't Mule following the death of bassist Allen Woody.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In a May 2001 interview with Metal-is.com, Cantrell revealed that he had written four songs for Ozzy Osbourne. Cantrell, Osbourne, guitarist Zakk Wylde, bassist Robert Trujillo and drummer Mike Bordin went to the studio and made some rough demos of those songs.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell was the lead guitarist in all of the tracks from Ozzy Osbourne's 2005 album of cover songs, "Under Cover". The songs performed by Cantrell were also included on disc four of Osbourne's box set "Prince of Darkness" (2005).


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In 2007, Cantrell played guitar on Glenn Hughes's rendition of Led Zeppelin's "Misty Mountain Hop", featured on Hughes' solo album "Music for the Divine", and played on the track "Soul Ecstacy" off the Stevie Salas's album "The Sun and the Earth: The Essential Stevie Salas, Vol. 1". He also played guitar on Smith & Pyle's debut album, "It's OK To Be Happy", released in 2008.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In 2010, Cantrell played guitar on the song "Anything" from Pearl Aday's debut album, "Little Immaculate White Fox". Aday stated that she thought Cantrell would be a good person to put in some "heartbroken, haunting, crying guitar" on the track.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell sings background vocals and does a lead vocal ad-lib in the final chorus of "Love Is Blind" from Richie Kotzen's 2011 album, "24 Hours".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: He played guitar on Duff McKagan's 2015 EP "How to Be a Man", and has also collaborated with Alternative Metal band Deftones, contributing guitar parts to the track "Phantom Bride" off their 2016 album "Gore".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell performed a snippet of "Man in the Box" followed by a cover of Motörhead's "Ace of Spades" alongside Pantera during their concert at the Seattle Center Coliseum on March 1, 1992. Cantrell joined the band again for their performance of "Walk" during a concert in San Jose, California on February 6, 2001. On October 9, 1994, Cantrell joined Metallica for a performance of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" during their concert in Oklahoma City.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In 2002, Cantrell played a series of summer dates with headlining rock band Nickelback. Cantrell can be seen playing Alice in Chains' "It Ain't Like That" with the band on their first DVD release, "Live at Home" (2002). He was also asked by Nickelback's frontman, Chad Kroeger, to contribute to the song "Hero" for the 2002 film "Spider-Man". Cantrell was unable to attend the recording session and was replaced by Saliva's Josey Scott.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell made several guest appearances with the supergroup Camp Freddy, (a covers band featuring Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro, former Guns N' Roses drummer Matt Sorum, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and Billy Idol guitarist Billy Morrison), performing with them for the first time at The Sundance Film Festival on January 19, 2004.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: The experience with Camp Freddy inspired Cantrell and The Cult guitarist Billy Duffy to form their own covers band, the rock supergroup Cardboard Vampyres (named after Cantrell's cats). Under the moniker of the Jerry Cantrell-Billy Duffy Band, they debuted during the three-concert series for Sweet Relief Musicians Fund at The Troubadour in April 2004. "This band is really just about having fun and playing tunes that we were fans of growing up," Cantrell stated. Performing mostly cover songs from bands like Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, The Stooges, Black Sabbath, and Aerosmith, the group was rounded out by vocalist John Corabi, bassist Chris Wyse, and drummer Josh Howser. The band played at various venues in the United States; although, they predominately played along the West Coast. No formal albums were released by the band.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell joined Metallica on backing vocals during their performance of "Nothing Else Matters" at the Download Festival in Dublin on June 11, 2006.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On October 6, 2009, Cantrell joined Pearl Jam during their concert at the Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles. Cantrell hopped on stage to close out the night with the guitar solo on "Alive". The following night, Cantrell joined the band to perform "Kick Out the Jams".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell made a special appearance at a Stone Temple Pilots concert in Camden, New Jersey, on May 23, 2010, playing guitar during the band's performance of "Sex Type Thing".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On December 9, 2011, Cantrell joined Metallica for their 30th anniversary concert at The Fillmore in San Francisco and performed the songs "For Whom the Bell Tolls", "Nothing Else Matters", "Seek and Destroy" and a cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Tuesday's Gone".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On May 12, 2012, Cantrell made a duet with Somar Macek accompanied by the Synergia Northwest Orchestra for a performance of Elton John's "Levon" at the Paramount Theater in Seattle, during a benefit concert for music education in Northwest public schools.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell performed with Duff McKagan's band The Walking Papers during the band's concert at The Crocodile in Seattle on December 15, 2012.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On April 18, 2013, the Seattle band Heart was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Cantrell joined the band onstage for a performance of "Crazy On You". Cantrell alongside Pearl Jam's Mike McCready and Soundgarden's Chris Cornell, also played guitar for Heart's hit song "Barracuda" with Ann and Nancy Wilson at the ceremony.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On November 20, 2015, Cantrell joined The Cult on stage at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles to perform the song "The Phoenix". On December 16, 2015, Cantrell joined the supergroup Royal Machines at The Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood and performed Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak" and Alice in Chains' "Would?" and "Man in the Box".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On March 13, 2017, Cantrell made a guest appearance at Steel Panther's concert at The Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood and performed "Man In The Box" with the band joined by Godsmack singer Sully Erna on lead vocals. On March 25, 2017, Cantrell performed with Nancy Wilson and Mike Inez at the 5th annual Rock Against MS benefit concert.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell was one of the musicians who participated on the Founders Award Celebration honoring The Doors at Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture on December 7, 2017. Cantrell sang "Love Her Madly" accompanied by The Doors' original guitarist Robby Krieger, keyboardist George Laks, bassist Zander Schloss, and drummer Brian Young. He came back at the end of the concert to sing "Roadhouse Blues" together with all the artists who performed at the tribute.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On December 8, 2017, Cantrell joined The Hellcat Saints (a supergroup featuring members of The Cult, Velvet Revolver, Weezer and Apocalyptica), to open for Jane's Addiction at the third annual Rhonda's Kiss benefit concert at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. Proceeds from the concert benefited the Cedars-Sinai Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute and further the mission of Rhonda's Kiss, an organization that helps cancer patients in need. Cantrell performed Alice in Chains' hits "Would?" and "Man in the Box", and sang Thin Lizzy's "Jailbreak".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On January 16, 2019, Cantrell along with William DuVall, Pearl Jam's guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament, and drummer Josh Freese performed Soundgarden's "Hunted Down" at the Chris Cornell tribute concert "I Am the Highway".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell's song "Leave Me Alone" was featured in the 1996 dark comedy "The Cable Guy" and can be found on that movie's soundtrack. "She Was My Girl" from "Degradation Trip" was included on the "Spider-Man" (2002) soundtrack.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell returned to the movie scene in 2004 to write, with the newly formed metal band Damageplan, the song "Ashes to Ashes" for the movie "The Punisher". The song features Cantrell sharing lead vocals with Damageplan singer Patrick Lachman, and it can be found on that movie's soundtrack, and as a bonus track on the Japanese version of Damageplan's debut album, "New Found Power".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In February 2017, Cantrell released the song "A Job to Do", the end-title song to "". Cantrell wrote the lyrics from the perspective of Keanu Reeves' title character. Cantrell said in a statement: "I really dug "John Wick" and have always admired Keanu's work. When the opportunity arose to create a song for the second film, Tyler Bates and I wrote and recorded 'A Job To Do', a theme song for the character. Can't wait to see it!".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On July 19, 2018, Cantrell released the song "Setting Sun" for the soundtrack of DC Comics' graphic novel "". The song was released as a single in digital platforms.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell's early influences made Alice in Chains' heavy metal tones stand out among their fellow grunge/alternative rock-oriented bands of the Seattle music scene. However, his musical range also extends into elements of blues and country as heard on his solo debut album. Cantrell's guitar playing is known for its unique use of wah pedal as well as odd time signatures. In a 1998 interview with "Guitar World", he was asked about the latter quality:


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell has been most famously seen playing a G&L Guitars' Rampage model. The two models most closely identified with Cantrell are instruments manufactured in the 1980s. They feature a maple body, maple neck and ebony fingerboard. The bridge is a Kahler Tremolo as opposed to a Floyd Rose tremolo which was commonly seen on instruments made throughout the 1980s and 90s. The guitars feature a single-bridge humbucker wired to a volume control.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: G&L Guitars makes two Jerry Cantrell Signature guitars available to the general public for purchase. The first is a Rampage model which is very similar to the instrument most closely identified with Cantrell, known as the "Blue Dress Rampage" for having an image of a vintage pin-up girl wearing a blue dress, which Cantrell taped to the top of his first guitar. The second is a guitar called the 'Superhawk'. This guitar features a fixed bridge and the addition of a neck pickup.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell used the original "Blue Dress" guitar on the music videos for "Man in the Box", "We Die Young", "Sea of Sorrow", "Grind", and "Again". The guitar can also be seen in the movie "Singles". In 2011, Cantrell revealed that he had to retire the guitar due to a hairline crack from the neck all the way through the back of the body. Before that, he had never gone on tour without it.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Apart from his signature G&L Guitars, Cantrell has also been seen playing a Telecaster, a Fender Standard Stratocaster Brown Sunburst, a Gibson Les Paul most notably an Ivory White Les Paul with torch burn marks that Cantrell made all over the guitar, which is the guitar that Cantrell has used on all of the Alice in Chains albums along with the original Blue Dress G&L. Also a Gibson Custom Shop Jerry Cantrell SG, a 1952 Goldtop Les Paul, an Ernie Ball Music Man EVH that was a gift from Eddie Van Halen in the 1990s, but has been stolen from Cantrell, a dark blue Mosrite Ventures model, a Dean Michael Schenker USA V, and Dean Soltero guitars. The Ernie Ball Music Man EVH Guitar that was stolen in 2001 was returned to him and made an appearance at a gig in 2018.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell used a variety of amplifiers such as those made by Bogner, Mesa Boogie and Marshall throughout his career. He has most recently been using a signature amp called the, 'JJ100' made for him by Friedman Amplification.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In 2010, Jim Dunlop introduced the "JC95 Cantrell Signature Cry Baby", Cantrell's signature Cry Baby wah pedal, based on the original Jimi Hendrix Wah pedal that Cantrell used since his early days. The lyrics to "Black Gives Way to Blue" are printed on the base plate of the pedal. In 2013, a limited edition of the pedal was released in black and red featuring the cover artwork for the album "The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here", and the lyrics to "Stone" on the bottom. In January 2019, Dunlop released a new version of the pedal, with a design based on Cantrell's tribal orca tattoo created by Coast Salish artist Joe Wilson, and lyrics for the Alice in Chains song "Rainier Fog" on the bottom plate.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell is widely considered to be one of the greatest rock guitarists of his generation. Pantera and Damageplan guitarist Dimebag Darrell expressed his admiration for Cantrell's guitar work in an interview for "Guitar International" in 1995, saying that "the layering and the honest feel that Jerry Cantrell gets on [Alice in Chains' "Dirt"] record is worth a lot more than someone who plays five million notes".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In July 2006, British hard rock/metal magazine "Metal Hammer" awarded Cantrell the title of "Riff Lord" at its annual Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards show, held at the London Astoria. He was apparently thrilled at winning the title over several famous artists such as Slash, James Hetfield, and Jimmy Page.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: He was ranked 38th out of 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Guitarists of All Time by "Guitar World" in 2004, and ranked at No. 37 out of "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" also by "Guitar World" in 2012.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In October 2008, "Guitar World" ranked Cantrell's solo in "Man in the Box" at No. 77 on its list of "100 Greatest Guitar Solos". Cantrell was ranked at No. 98 on the list of the "Top 100 Most Complete Guitar Players of All Time" by Envision Radio Networks' "Chop Shop" guitar show in December 2008.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Elton John stated in a 2009 interview with "Rolling Stone" that he's been an admirer of Cantrell for quite some time, and couldn't resist the offer to play on Alice in Chains' song "Black Gives Way to Blue" at Cantrell's request.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash stated in a 2010 interview with Epiphone.com that Cantrell is one of the most inspiring lead guitar players that have come out in the last 20 years.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In a 2015 interview with Loudwire discussing five of his essential guitar albums, Slayer guitarist Kerry King said about Cantrell:


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In 2016, Blend Guitar ranked Cantrell at No. 7 on its list of "Top 10 Underrated Guitarists", and Loudwire ranked him at No. 38 on its list of "The 66 Best Hard Rock + Metal Guitarists of All Time".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In 2018, Cantrell was named "Guitarist of the Year" by Ultimate Guitar's readers poll. Cantrell and William DuVall were also tied at No. 10 on Total Guitar/MusicRadar's "15 best rock guitarists in the world right now" poll.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Between 2009 and 2010, Cantrell co-owned a hard rock bar called Dead Man's Hand in Las Vegas with Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In 2011, Cantrell appeared on a spot for NADCP, the National Association of Drug Court Professionals.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On May 18, 2019, it was announced that Cantrell will compose the score for Shane Dax Taylor's upcoming sci-fi film, "Salvage".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In his teens, Cantrell was acting in lead roles in high school plays. In a 1998 Q&A, Cantrell revealed that acting has always been an interest to him.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell is featured in the 1992 movie "Singles", along with the rest of Alice in Chains performing the songs "It Ain't Like That" and "Would?".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In the early 1990s, Cantrell and his Alice in Chains bandmates Layne Staley and Mike Starr were featured on the music video "Never a Know, But the No", from the Seattle thrash metal band Forced Entry.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In 1995, Cantrell played journalist Nona Weisbaum on the Alice in Chains mockumentary "The Nona Tapes".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In 1996, he had a cameo in Cameron Crowe's "Jerry Maguire" playing "Jesus of CopyMat", the CopyMat worker who helped Tom Cruise's character make copies of his manifesto. Cantrell said about the film; "I get more people coming up to me telling me my line. It was such a big movie and it was really fun to do." Cantrell was also Crowe's first choice for the role of Stillwater bass player Larry Fellows in "Almost Famous" (2000), but he was busy writing the songs for his solo album "Degradation Trip" and had to turn the role down. Mark Kozelek was cast instead.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: He also had a cameo as himself in the 2009 film noir comedy "Rock Slyde", appeared on the background of two scenes from the first episode of season three of the HBO TV series "Deadwood" in 2006, and made a cameo in "" in 2019.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In 2013, Cantrell played country singer Donnie "Skeeter" Dollarhide Jr. on the Alice in Chains mockumentary "".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In 2018, Cantrell played Terry, a plumber who plays bass in a garage band in the short film "Dad Band", co-starring W. Earl Brown. Cantrell also composed the film score along with Carl Restivo.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell lived in Monroe, Washington from the mid 1990s until the early 2000s. He has lived in Studio City, California since 2003, and he has maintained a residence in Burien, Washington since 2012.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell was homeless in the early '90s and lived for some time at the house of Pearl Jam's manager Kelly Curtis. While living in the basement of Curtis' house, Cantrell was roommates with Pearl Jam lead singer Eddie Vedder. At the start of 1991, Cantrell moved in with Soundgarden lead singer Chris Cornell and his then-wife Susan Silver at their house in Seattle. Silver was also Alice in Chains' manager. Cantrell wrote the song "Rooster" at the Cornells' house and stayed there for a few weeks. Cantrell would later pay tribute to Cornell during the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony on April 14, 2018, joining singer Ann Wilson for a rendition of Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun". Alice in Chains also paid tribute to Cornell on the one year anniversary of his death on May 18, 2018. The band covered two Soundgarden songs, "Hunted Down" and "Boot Camp", closing their headlining set at the Rock on the Range festival in Columbus, Ohio. Towards the end of "Boot Camp", the lights on stage spelled out "CC" for Chris Cornell and "SG" for Soundgarden as feedback rang out.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell was a close friend of late Alice in Chains' lead singer Layne Staley, who was described by Cantrell as his best friend. Staley died on April 5, 2002 at the same time of Cantrell's "Degradation Trip" tour, but Cantrell opted not to cancel any shows, stating, "It's difficult to do interviews - it's hard to talk about it [Staley's death]. I'm just thankful to have a tour and work - something I can focus on." "The shows I played between the time I got the word about Layne and Layne's funeral were very important to me in terms of being able to continue on. It's one of those things where if you take a break and allow things to settle in, it might be harder to get up again." Cantrell's manager at the time, Bill Siddons, said that Jerry really loved Layne and they had a bond he hadn't seen before. Asked about Staley's death in an interview with MTV in July 2002, Cantrell said: "It's something I'm still dealing with, and I still think like he's here. I miss him tremendously. I love him and have to move on. I'll remember him and respect the memories of what we did together and just enjoy life... and that's all I'll say about it." William DuVall, who performed Staley's vocals during Cantrell's solo concerts, elaborated on this emotional period saying: "I lost my grandfather in the same week, so Cantrell and I both hit the road with immense personal losses dogging us. There were times on stage—there was one show in Charlotte where it was just so heavy. I'm holding back tears onstage, and Jerry would start crying onstage too a lot at that point, and a lot of times we would just look at each other when we were singing the stuff because it was the only way... it was heavy. I can't quantify it really in words."


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell canceled the show that he was scheduled to perform at 98 Rock's Livestock Festival in Zephyrhills on April 28 in order to attend Staley's funeral in Seattle in the same day. Cantrell dedicated his solo album, "Degradation Trip", released two months after Staley's death, to his memory. He also adopted Staley's cat, a female siamese named Sadie, after his death. The cat appeared on Cantrell's episode of "MTV Cribs", which was shot at his ranch in Oklahoma in September 2002. Sadie died on the same night of Alice in Chains' concert in Seattle on October 8, 2010, aged 18.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell is critical of religion and Young Earth creationism, satirizing them both in Alice in Chains' 2013 album, "The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here". Cantrell stated, "There are two things you never want to get into a conversation or argument about: politics and religion. But fuck, I guess we're going to be talking about this for awhile". "No one in the band claims to be an expert on religion, but the title of the song ["The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here"] comes from something that a lot of people actually believe in". Cantrell also stated that he's sick of the hypocrisy that's taken over many facets of organized religion. "I think there's overwhelming evidence that things aren't working right now. We need to start growing up as a people. When you're teaching people that being gay is a mortal sin, yet a good portion of the people teaching this are fucking kids, there's a huge problem".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: During his independent tour for "Degradation Trip" before the album was released, Cantrell broke his left hand while playing football after a concert at the Kentucky Derby on May 3, 2001. While Cantrell was running full speed, his guitar player at the time, Bryan Kehoe, was also running full speed towards him and Cantrell got his pinky finger caught in Kehoe's T-shirt sleeve. Cantrell went to the emergency room but they could not do anything for him there, since the bone had slipped back in his hand and he would need a reconstructive surgery, but he had to wait for a couple of weeks for that to happen. Cantrell wanted to continue the tour, and although he was in a lot of pain, he played his first concert as a frontman without a guitar opening for Cheap Trick in Atlanta. Cantrell needed a titanium plate and four screws to put the bones back together. Cantrell reported that breaking his hand was the worst physical pain he ever had. The injury caused the remainder of Cantrell's solo tour to be postponed. His first concert after the surgery was at the Key Club in West Hollywood on July 1, 2001.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell underwent shoulder surgery twice. In December 2005, a surgery in his left shoulder removed bone fragments and repaired cartilage. During a chat at ESPN.com on November 29, 2011, Cantrell revealed that he had gone through another surgery earlier that year, this time in his right shoulder and that he was in the tail end of the rehabilitation process. The surgery postponed the recording sessions of "The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here" as Cantrell could not play guitar for eight months while he was recovering. Cantrell explained the surgery saying, "The thing that set me back is I had some bone spurs [and] cartilage issues in my shoulders. I had the same issue in the other shoulder about six years ago so I've had them both done now. It's a repetitive motion injury from playing." While recuperating at home in a sling, Cantrell heard a riff in his head and sang it into his phone. The riff later became the song "Stone", the first single from "The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell is a recovering addict and alcoholic and has been sober since 2003. He was awarded the 2012 Stevie Ray Vaughan Award from MusiCares, for his work helping other addicts with the recovery process. Cantrell said in his acceptance speech, "I crash landed here almost 9 years ago, in Los Angeles. Sean [Kinney] was at the door with my brother, so my choices were open the door and go to rehab or jump out the back window down a cliff into some blackberry bushes. That's the choice I took. Luckily they caught me because I couldn't go anywhere, I was kind of stuck in a bush at the bottom of a cliff bleeding, and I ended up here. I didn't intend to get here but I'm very grateful I am here, and it took a lot of people to help me get here. It's been an amazing day. It's overwhelming. I'm as imperfect as they come. I just don't get high today and wake up the next morning and try and do the same thing. A lot of people stand and get the fuck back up after falling. Some people don't get that chance. My band's been a harsh example of that – what happens when you don't deal with it." Cantrell and his Alice in Chains bandmates played a five-song set at the awards event and Cantrell stated, "We really miss Layne [Staley] and Mike [Starr], and we carry them with us in our hearts".


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell is a longtime supporter of MusiCares MAP Fund, which helps musicians who are struggling with addiction, financial and health issues. He also supports Road Recovery, an organization dedicated to helping young people battling addiction.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In 1996, Cantrell became involved with anti-racism organisation Artists for a Hate Free America, alongside other musicians including Jeff Ament, Beck and Michael Stipe, to film public service announcements, and pose for a national ad campaign.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On April 12, 2004, Cantrell and his then-band Cardboard Vampyres performed at a benefit concert for Sweet Relief, a nonprofit organization that helps needy musicians cover medical expenses. On November 10, 2004, Cantrell was among the musicians who performed a short acoustic set to benefit "Help The Homeless" in Hollywood, California.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In 2007, Cantrell auctioned off some of his favorite clothes from key moments in his career to benefit MusiCares and the Layne Staley Fund, which provides support and treatment for heroin recovery in the Seattle music community.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Since 2009, Cantrell has hosted the "Alice in Chains & Friends Charity Fantasy Football League". Each participant puts up an item for an online auction and all of the proceeds goes to the charity chosen by the champion of the league. Cantrell founded the league to combine his love of fantasy football with the goal of helping a worthy cause. Cantrell won the league for the first time in 2016, and in 2017 he decided to donate the proceeds to MusiCares in Chris Cornell's memory, and to Music for Relief in memory of Chester Bennington. Both musicians died in 2017. In 2018, Cantrell named the league's trophy after his friend Vinnie Paul, who had died recently.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: On May 15, 2015, Cantrell performed at the second annual Acoustic-4-A-Cure concert in benefit of the Pediatric Cancer Program at the University of California, San Francisco.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell is a supporter of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and has performed at benefit concerts and charity golf tournaments to raise funds for the hospital that treats children with cancer.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell and his Alice in Chains bandmates offer special seating at their concerts for veterans from Operation Ward 57, a fund for wounded soldiers.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: In 2015, Alice in Chains donated two dollars from every pre-sold ticket of their summer tour to help the family of a fan named Stefan Dayne-Ankle, who died after a battle with leukemia.


title: Jerry Cantrell

text: Cantrell also supports Music for Relief, Autism Speaks, Rock Against MS Foundation, and the Los Angeles Police Memorial Foundation.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Phoenician alphabet is an alphabet (more specifically, an abjad) known in modern times from the Canaanite and Aramaic inscriptions found across the Mediterranean region. The name comes from the Phoenician civilization.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Phoenician alphabet is also called the Early Linear script (in a Semitic context, not connected to Minoan writing systems), because it is an early development of the Proto- or Old Canaanite or Proto-Sinaitic script, into a linear, purely alphabetic script, also marking the transfer from a multi-directional writing system, where a variety of writing directions occurred, to a regulated horizontal, right-to-left script. Its immediate predecessor, the Proto-Canaanite, Old Canaanite or Proto-Sinaitic script, used in the final stages of the Late Bronze Age, first in either Egypt or Canaan and then in the Syro-Hittite kingdoms, is the oldest fully matured alphabet, and it was derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Phoenician alphabet was used to write the Early Iron Age Canaanite languages, subcategorized by historians as Phoenician, Hebrew, Moabite, Ammonite and Edomite, as well as Old Aramaic. Its use in Phoenicia (coastal Levant) led to its wide dissemination outside of the Canaanite sphere, spread by Phoenician merchants across the Mediterranean world, where it was adopted and modified by many other cultures. It became one of the most widely used writing systems. The Phoenician alphabet proper remained in use in Ancient Carthage until the 2nd century BC (known as the Punic alphabet), while elsewhere it diversified into numerous national alphabets, including the Aramaic and Samaritan, several Anatolian scripts, and the early Greek alphabets. In the Near East, the Aramaic alphabet became especially successful, giving rise to the Jewish square script and Perso-Arabic scripts, among others.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: "Phoenician proper" consists of 22 consonant letters (leaving vowel sounds implicit) – in other words, it is an "abjad" – although certain late varieties use "matres lectionis" for some vowels. As the letters were originally incised with a stylus, they are mostly angular and straight, although cursive versions steadily gained popularity, culminating in the Neo-Punic alphabet of Roman-era North Africa. Phoenician was usually written right to left, though some texts alternate directions (boustrophedon).


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The earliest known alphabetic (or "proto-alphabetic") inscriptions are the so-called Proto-Sinaitic (or Proto-Canaanite) script sporadically attested in the Sinai and in Canaan in the late Middle and Late Bronze Age. The script was not widely used until the rise of Syro-Hittite states in the 13th and 12th centuries BC.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Phoenician alphabet is a direct continuation of the "Proto-Canaanite" script of the Bronze Age collapse period. The inscriptions found on the Phoenician arrowheads at al-Khader near Bethlehem and dated to c.1100 BCE offered the epigraphists the "missing link" between the two. The so-called Ahiram epitaph, whose dating is controversial, engraved on the sarcophagus of king Ahiram in Byblos, Lebanon, one of five known Byblian royal inscriptions, shows essentially the fully developed Phoenician script, although the name "Phoenician" is by convention given to inscriptions beginning in the mid-11th century BC.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The German philologist Max Müller (1823-1900) believed that the Phoenician alphabet was derived from the Ancient South Arabian script during the 9th-century BC rule of the Minaeans over parts of the Eastern Mediterranean.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: Beginning in the 9th century BC, adaptations of the Phoenician alphabet thrived, including Greek, Old Italic and Anatolian scripts. The alphabet's attractive innovation was its phonetic nature, in which one sound was represented by one symbol, which meant only a few dozen symbols to learn. The other scripts of the time, cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs, employed many complex characters and required long professional training to achieve proficiency; which had restricted literacy to a small elite.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: Another reason for its success was the maritime trading culture of Phoenician merchants, which spread the alphabet into parts of North Africa and Southern Europe. Phoenician inscriptions have been found in archaeological sites at a number of former Phoenician cities and colonies around the Mediterranean, such as Byblos (in present-day Lebanon) and Carthage in North Africa. Later finds indicate earlier use in Egypt.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The alphabet had long-term effects on the social structures of the civilizations that came in contact with it. Its simplicity not only allowed its easy adaptation to multiple languages, but it also allowed the common people to learn how to write. This upset the long-standing status of literacy as an exclusive achievement of royal and religious elites, scribes who used their monopoly on information to control the common population. The appearance of Phoenician disintegrated many of these class divisions, although many Middle Eastern kingdoms, such as Assyria, Babylonia and Adiabene, would continue to use cuneiform for legal and liturgical matters well into the Common Era.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: According to Herodotus, the Phoenician prince Cadmus was accredited with the introduction of the Phoenician alphabet—"phoinikeia grammata", "Phoenician letters"—to the Greeks, who adapted it to form their Greek alphabet. Herodotus claims that the Greeks did not know of the Phoenician alphabet before Cadmus.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: He estimates that Cadmus lived sixteen hundred years before his time (while the historical adoption of the alphabet by the Greeks was barely 350 years before Herodotus).


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Phoenician alphabet was known to the Jewish sages of the Second Temple era, who called it the "Old Hebrew" (Paleo-Hebrew) script.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The conventional date of 1050 BC for the emergence of the Phoenician script was chosen because there is a gap in the epigraphic record; there are not actually any Phoenician inscriptions securely dated to the 11th century. The oldest inscriptions are dated to the 10th century.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Phoenician alphabet was deciphered in 1758 by Jean-Jacques Barthélemy, but its relation to the Phoenicians remained unknown until the 19th century. It was at first believed that the script was a direct variation of Egyptian hieroglyphs, which were deciphered by Champollion in the early 19th century.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: However, scholars could not find any link between the two writing systems, nor to hieratic or cuneiform. The theories of independent creation ranged from the idea of a single individual conceiving it, to the Hyksos people forming it from corrupt Egyptian. It was eventually discovered that the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet was inspired by the model of hieroglyphs.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The chart shows the "graphical" evolution of Phoenician letter forms into other alphabets. The "sound" values also changed significantly, both at the initial creation of new alphabets and from gradual pronunciation changes which did not immediately lead to spelling changes. The Phoenician letter forms shown are idealized: actual Phoenician writing is less uniform, with significant variations by era and region.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: When alphabetic writing began, with the early Greek alphabet, the letter forms were similar but not identical to Phoenician, and vowels were added to the consonant-only Phoenician letters. There were also distinct variants of the writing system in different parts of Greece, primarily in how those Phoenician characters that did not have an exact match to Greek sounds were used. The Ionic variant evolved into the standard Greek alphabet, and the Cumae variant into the Italic alphabets (including the Latin alphabet).


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Runic alphabet is derived from Italic, the Cyrillic alphabet from medieval Greek. The Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic scripts are derived from Aramaic (the latter as a medieval cursive variant of Nabataean). Ge'ez is from South Arabian.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: Phoenician used a system of acrophony to name letters: a word was chosen with each initial consonant sound, and became the name of the letter for that sound. These names were not arbitrary: each Phoenician letter was based on an Egyptian hieroglyph representing an Egyptian word; this word was translated into Phoenician (or a closely related Semitic language), then the initial sound of the translated word became the letter's Phoenician value. For example, the second letter of the Phoenician alphabet was based on the Egyptian hieroglyph for "house" (a sketch of a house); the Semitic word for "house" was "bet"; hence the Phoenician letter was called "bet" and had the sound value "b".


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: According to a 1904 theory by Theodor Nöldeke, some of the letter names were changed in Phoenician from the Proto-Canaanite script. This includes:


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: Yigael Yadin (1963) went to great lengths to prove that there was actual battle equipment similar to some of the original letter forms named for weapons (samek, zayin).


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: Later, the Greeks kept (approximately) the Phoenician names, albeit they didn't mean anything to them other than the letters themselves; on the other hand, the Latins (and presumably the Etruscans from whom they borrowed a variant of the Western Greek alphabet) and the Orthodox Slavs (at least when naming the Cyrillic letters, which came to them from the Greek by way of the Glagolitic) based their names purely on the letters' sounds.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Phoenician numeral system consisted of separate symbols for 1, 10, 20, and 100. The sign for 1 was a simple vertical stroke (𐤖). Other numerals up to 9 were formed by adding the appropriate number of such strokes, arranged in groups of three. The symbol for 10 was a horizontal line or tack (). The sign for 20 (𐤘) could come in different glyph variants, one of them being a combination of two 10-tacks, approximately Z-shaped. Larger multiples of ten were formed by grouping the appropriate number of 20s and 10s. There existed several glyph variants for 100 (𐤙). The 100 symbol could be multiplied by a preceding numeral, e.g. the combination of "4" and "100" yielded 400. The system did not contain a numeral zero.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: Phoenician is well prolific in terms of writing systems derived from it, as many of the writing systems in use today can ultimately trace their descent to it, and consequently Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian and Georgian scripts are derived from the Greek alphabet, which evolved from Phoenician; the Aramaic alphabet, also descended from Phoenician, evolved into the Arabic and Hebrew scripts. It has also been theorised that the Brahmi and subsequent Brahmic scripts of the Indian cultural sphere also descended from Aramaic, effectively uniting most of the world's writing systems under one family, although the theory is disputed.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet is a regional variant of the Phoenician alphabet, so called when used to write early Hebrew. The Samaritan alphabet is a development of Paleo-Hebrew, emerging in the 6th century BC. The South Arabian script may be derived from a stage of the Proto-Sinaitic script predating the mature development of the Phoenician alphabet proper. The Geʽez script developed from South Arabian.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Phoenician alphabet continued to be used by the Samaritans and developed into the Samaritan alphabet, that is an immediate continuation of the Phoenician script without intermediate non-Israelite evolutionary stages. The Samaritans have continued to use the script for writing both Hebrew and Aramaic texts until the present day. A comparison of the earliest Samaritan inscriptions and the medieval and modern Samaritan manuscripts clearly indicates that the Samaritan script is a static script which was used mainly as a book hand.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Aramaic alphabet, used to write Aramaic, is an early descendant of Phoenician. Aramaic, being the "lingua franca" of the Middle East, was widely adopted. It later split off (due to political divisions) into a number of related alphabets, including Hebrew, Syriac, and Nabataean, the latter of which, in its cursive form, became an ancestor of the Arabic alphabet. The Hebrew alphabet emerges in the Second Temple period, from around 300 BC, out of the Aramaic alphabet used in the Persian empire. There was, however, a revival of the Phoenician mode of writing later in the Second Temple period, with some instances from the Qumran Caves, such as the "Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus scroll" dated to the 2nd or 1st century BC.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: By the 5th century BCE, among Jews the Phoenician alphabet had been mostly replaced by the Aramaic alphabet as officially used in the Persian empire (which, like all alphabetical writing systems, was itself ultimately a descendant of the Proto-Canaanite script, though through intermediary non-Israelite stages of evolution). The "Jewish square-script" variant now known simply as the Hebrew alphabet evolved directly out of the Aramaic script by about the 3rd century BCE (although some letter shapes did not become standard until the 1st century CE).


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Kharosthi script is an Arabic-derived alphasyllabary used in the Indo-Greek Kingdom in the 3rd century BC. The Syriac alphabet is the derived form of Aramaic used in the early Christian period. The Sogdian alphabet is derived from Syriac. It is in turn an ancestor of the Old Uyghur. The Manichaean alphabet is a further derivation from Sogdian.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: It has been proposed, notably by Georg Bühler (1898), that the Brahmi script of India (and by extension the derived Indic alphabets) was ultimately derived from the Aramaic script, which would make Phoenician the ancestor of virtually every alphabetic writing system in use today, with the notable exception of written Korean (whose influence from the Brahmi-derived 'Phags-pa script has been theorized but acknowledged to be limited at best, and cannot be said to have derived from 'Phags-pa as 'Phags-pa derived from Tibetan and Tibetan from Brahmi).


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: It is certain that the Aramaic-derived Kharosthi script was present in northern India by the 4th century BC, so that the Aramaic model of alphabetic writing would have been known in the region, but the link from Kharosthi to the slightly younger Brahmi is tenuous. Bühler's suggestion is still entertained in mainstream scholarship, but it has never been proven conclusively, and no definitive scholarly consensus exists.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Greek alphabet is derived from the Phoenician. With a different phonology, the Greeks adapted the Phoenician script to represent their own sounds, including the vowels absent in Phoenician. It was possibly more important in Greek to write out vowel sounds: Phoenician being a Semitic language, words were based on consonantal roots that permitted extensive removal of vowels without loss of meaning, a feature absent in the Indo-European Greek. However, Akkadian cuneiform, which wrote a related Semitic language, did indicate vowels, which suggests the Phoenicians simply accepted the model of the Egyptians, who never wrote vowels. In any case, the Greeks repurposed the Phoenician letters of consonant sounds not present in Greek; each such letter had its name shorn of its leading consonant, and the letter took the value of the now-leading vowel. For example, "ʾāleph", which designated a glottal stop in Phoenician, was repurposed to represent the vowel ; "he" became , "ḥet" became (a long vowel), "ʿayin" became (because the pharyngeality altered the following vowel), while the two semi-consonants "wau" and "yod" became the corresponding high vowels, and . (Some dialects of Greek, which did possess and , continued to use the Phoenician letters for those consonants as well.)


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Alphabets of Asia Minor are generally assumed to be offshoots of archaic versions of the Greek alphabet.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Latin alphabet was derived from Old Italic (originally derived from a form of the Greek alphabet), used for Etruscan and other languages. The origin of the Runic alphabet is disputed: the main theories are that it evolved either from the Latin alphabet itself, some early Old Italic alphabet via the Alpine scripts, or the Greek alphabet. Despite this debate, the Runic alphabet is clearly derived from one or more scripts that ultimately trace their roots back to the Phoenician alphabet.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Coptic alphabet is mostly based on the mature Greek alphabet of the Hellenistic period, with a few additional letters for sounds not in Greek at the time. Those additional letters are based on the Demotic script.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The Cyrillic script was derived from the late (medieval) Greek alphabet. Some Cyrillic letters (generally for sounds not in medieval Greek) are based on Glagolitic forms.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: These were an indigenous set of genetically related semisyllabaries, which suited the phonological characteristics of the Tartessian, Iberian and Celtiberian languages. They were deciphered in 1922 by Manuel Gómez-Moreno but their content is almost impossible to understand because they are not related to any living languages. While Gómez-Moreno first pointed to a joined Phoenician-Greek origin, following authors consider that their genesis has no relation to Greek.


title: Phoenician alphabet

text: The most remote script of the group is the Tartessian or Southwest script which could be one or several different scripts. The main bulk of PH inscriptions use, by far, the Northeastern Iberian script, which serves to write Iberian in the levantine coast North of Contestania and in the valle of the river Ebro (Hiber). The Iberic language is also recorded using two other scripts: the Southeastern Iberian script, which is more similar to the Southwest script than to Northeastern Iberian; and a variant of the Ionic Greek Alphabet called the Greco-Iberian alphabet. Finally, the Celtiberian script registers the language of the Celtiberians with a script derived from Northeastern Iberian, an interesting feature is that it was used and developed in times of the Roman conquest, in opposition to the Latin alphabet.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: Michael William Krzyzewski ( ; born February 13, 1947), nicknamed "Coach K", is an American former college basketball coach. He served as the head coach at Duke University from 1980 to 2022, during which he led the Blue Devils to five national titles, 13 Final Fours, 15 ACC tournament championships, and 13 ACC regular season titles. Among men's college basketball coaches, only UCLA's John Wooden has won more NCAA championships, with a total of ten. Krzyzewski is widely regarded as one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: Krzyzewski has also coached the United States national team, which he has led to three gold medals at the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympics. He was the head coach of the U.S. team that won gold medals at the 2010 and the 2014 FIBA World Cup, and an assistant coach for the "Dream Team" at the 1992 Olympics.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: Krzyzewski was a point guard at Army from 1966 to 1969 under coach Bob Knight. From 1975 to 1980, he was the head coach for his alma mater. He is a two-time inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, in 2001 for his individual coaching career and in 2010 as part of the collective induction of the "Dream Team." He was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006, and the United States Olympic Hall of Fame in 2009 (with the "Dream Team").


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: On November 15, 2011, Krzyzewski led Duke to a 74–69 victory over Michigan State at Madison Square Garden to become the coach with the most wins in NCAA Division I men's basketball history. Krzyzewski's 903rd victory set a new record, breaking that held by his former coach, Bob Knight. On January 25, 2015, Duke defeated St. John's, 77–68, again at Madison Square Garden, as Krzyzewski became the first Division I men's coach to reach 1,000 wins.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: Krzyzewski was born in Chicago, the son of Polish American parents Emily M. (née Pituch) and William Krzyzewski. Raised as a Catholic, Krzyzewski attended St. Helen Catholic School in Ukrainian Village, Chicago and, later, Archbishop Weber High School in Chicago, a Catholic prep school for boys.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1969, where he played basketball under Bob Knight. He was captain of the Army basketball team in his senior season, 1968–69, leading the Cadets to the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) at Madison Square Garden in New York City, where West Point finished fourth.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: From 1969 to 1974, Krzyzewski served as an officer in the U.S. Army and directed service teams for three years. In 2005, he was presented West Point's Distinguished Graduate Award.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: He was discharged from active duty in 1974 with the rank of captain, and started his coaching career as an assistant on Knight's staff with the Indiana Hoosiers during their historic 1974–75 season. After one year with Indiana, Krzyzewski returned to West Point as head coach at age 28; in his five seasons, he led the Army Cadets to a record and an NIT berth in 1978.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: On March 18, 1980, Krzyzewski was named the head coach at Duke University after five seasons at Army. After a few rebuilding seasons, he and the Blue Devils became a fixture on the national basketball scene with 35 NCAA Tournament berths in the past 36 years and 24 consecutive from 1996 to 2019, which is the second-longest current streak of tournament appearances behind Kansas, which has appeared in the tournament in 30 consecutive seasons. Overall, he has taken his program to postseason play in 36 of his 39 years at Duke and is the most winning active coach in men's NCAA Tournament play with a 100–30 record for a .769 winning percentage. His Duke teams have won 15 ACC Championships, been to 12 Final Fours, and won five NCAA tournament National Championships.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: Krzyzewski had surgery to repair a ruptured disk in his back in October 1994, but insisted on returning to the sidelines for the 1994–95 season, using a special stool to keep him off his feet. However, the pain became so debilitating that he went several days without sleeping early in the season. By the start of ACC play, the pain had progressed to a point that he could not continue. Shortly after the first game of ACC play, Krzyzewski told his players and coaches that he was taking a leave of absence, with longtime assistant Pete Gaudet serving as interim head coach for the remainder of the season. He had actually planned to resign, but athletic director Tom Butters persuaded him to take a leave of absence instead. Per longstanding NCAA guidance, Duke only credits the first 12 games of the season to Krzyzewski and credits the remainder of the season to Gaudet. Years later, Krzyzewski said that he probably would have been out of basketball if he hadn't endured that season, since it made him realize he needed to manage his time better and delegate more responsibility.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: On February 13, 2010, Krzyzewski coached in his 1,000th game as the Duke head coach. On March 20, 2011, Krzyzewski won his 900th game, becoming the second of three Division I men's basketball coaches to reach 900 basketball wins, the other two being Jim Boeheim at Syracuse and his head coach at Army, Bob Knight. On November 15, 2011, Krzyzewski got his 903rd win passing Knight's record for most Division I wins. In an interview of both men on ESPN the previous night, Krzyzewski discussed the leadership skills he learned from Knight and the United States Military Academy. Knight credited Krzyzewski's understanding of himself and his players as keys to his success over the years.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: On January 25, 2015, Krzyzewski won his 1,000th game, when Duke defeated St. John's in Madison Square Garden. He is the first men's coach to win 1,000 NCAA Division I basketball games.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: On April 6, 2015, Krzyzewski won his fifth NCAA championship, when Duke defeated Wisconsin in the title game.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: Winning against Yale in the 2016 NCAA tournament on March 19, Krzyzewski became the all-time winningest coach in the NCAA Division I tournament with 90 total wins.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: On November 11, 2017, Krzyzewski won his 1,000th game with the Duke Blue Devils, making him the first head coach to win 1,000 games with one NCAA Division I men's basketball program.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: On March 17, 2018, Krzyzewski won his 1,099th game in his career, passing Pat Summitt for most wins by a Division I coach, male or female.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: On February 16, 2019, Krzyzewski won his 1,123rd game to become the winningest coach in college basketball history at any level (men's or women's), passing Harry Statham of Division II McKendree University.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: On June 2, 2021, Krzyzewski announced that he would retire at the conclusion of the 2021–22 season. Krzyzewski coached his final home game on March 5, 2022 against rival North Carolina, where Duke lost 94–81. Krzyzewski reached his 13th Final Four appearance, passing John Wooden for the most Final Four appearances as a coach, where Duke lost 81–77 to North Carolina in his final game on April 2, 2022. He ended his career at Duke with a 1,129–309 win-loss record.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: On April 5, 2022, former Duke player Jay Williams theorized that Krzyzewski could return for another season, but Krzyzewski quickly put that theory to rest when he said he was not going to "pull a Tom Brady" on ESPNU Radio.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: Krzyzewski's teams won three consecutive gold medals in the Olympics with him as head coach of the USA men's national team. His other international coaching accolades include a silver medal at the 1987 World University Games, a bronze medal at the 1990 FIBA World Championship, a silver medal at the 1990 Goodwill Games, a bronze medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship, and gold medals at the 2007 FIBA Americas Championship, the 2010 FIBA World Championship, and the 2014 FIBA World Cup.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: He was also an assistant coach for USA teams that won gold medals at the 1984 and 1992 Olympics, 1979 Pan American Games, and 1992 Tournament of the Americas.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: In 2005, he was appointed coach of the national team through the 2008 Olympics. In the 2006 FIBA World Championship, the USA won the bronze medal after losing in the semifinals to Greece, then beating defending Olympic gold medalist Argentina for third place.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: On August 24, 2008, Krzyzewski's U.S. team won the gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. "The Redeem Team" finished the tournament with a perfect 8–0 record. He coached the U.S. team for the 2010 FIBA World Championship and led Team USA to a perfect 9–0 record, defeating host Turkey in the gold medal game, 81–64. His team won a second Olympic gold in London, defeating runners-up Spain, 107–100. Krzyzewski has amassed a total record of 75–1 (.987) as head coach of the USA National Team.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: In February 2013, Krzyzewski stepped down after seven years of coaching the national team, but Team USA in May announced that he would return as head coach from 2013 through 2016.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: During his long tenure at Duke, Krzyzewski has been given the opportunity to coach in the NBA at least five times. The first time came after the 1990 season when he led the Blue Devils to their third straight Final Four appearance. The Boston Celtics offered a coaching position to Krzyzewski, but he soon declined their offer. The next season, Krzyzewski proceeded to lead the Blue Devils to the first of two straight national championships. In 1994, he was pursued by the Portland Trail Blazers, but again he chose to stay with Duke. In 2004, Krzyzewski was also interviewed by the Los Angeles Lakers following the departure of high-profile coach Phil Jackson. He was given a formal offer from Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak, reportedly for five years, $40 million and part ownership, but again turned down the NBA. In 2010, the New Jersey Nets were reportedly willing to pay Krzyzewski between $12 million and $15 million per season to coach the Nets. Krzyzewski again declined the offer and stayed at Duke. In 2011, Krzyzewski was offered the vacant coaching position for the Minnesota Timberwolves, but he again declined the offer and chose to stay at Duke.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: Krzyzewski married his wife, Carol "Mickie" Marsh, in the Catholic chapel at West Point on the day of his graduation in 1969. They have three daughters and ten grandchildren. According to "The Wall Street Journal," she was the only person who could persuade him to stand down during the 1994–95 season when he was suffering with a ruptured disk. She actually went as far as to give her husband an ultimatum–if he wanted to come home on what would prove to be his final day of coaching that season, he needed to skip practice and go to the doctor. His grandson, Michael Savarino, was a walk-on player at Duke for the 2019–20 season.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: Krzyzewski and his family founded the Emily Krzyzewski Center, a non-profit organization affiliated with Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Durham, which was established in 2006 and named in honor of Krzyzewski's mother. The mission is to inspire students from kindergarten to high school to dream big, act with character and purpose, and reach their potential as leaders in their community. The Center's K to College Model serves academically focused students in out-of-school programming designed to help them achieve in school, gain entry to college, and break the cycle of poverty in their families. Krzyzewski and his wife, Mickie, have also been active for years in fundraising and support for the Duke Children's Hospital, Children's Miracle Network, the V Foundation for Cancer Research. In all of those entities they have both served as chairs and/or led major fundraising efforts. In addition, the Krzyzewskis have been major donors to Duke University in supporting a number of areas, including establishing scholarship endowments for students in North and South Carolina as well as a Duke student-athlete every year. He also serves on the board of advisors of the Code of Support Foundation, a nonprofit military services organization.


title: Mike Krzyzewski

text: In 2012, Krzyzewski received the U.S. Basketball Writers Association's Wayman Tisdale Humanitarian Award honoring his civic service and charitable efforts in making a significant positive impact on society.


The 2020 United States House of Representatives elections were held on November 3, 2020, to elect representatives from all 435 congressional districts across each of the 50 U.S. states, as well as six non-voting delegates from the District of Columbia and the inhabited U.S. territories. Special House elections were also held on various dates throughout 2020.


title: 2020 United States House of Representatives elections

text: In the 2018 United States House of Representatives elections, the Democrats had won 235 seats. Leading up to the 2020 elections, the Democrats were projected by many polls to expand their majority by up to 15 seats due to the unpopularity of then-President Donald Trump. While Democrats ultimately retained control of the House following the 2020 elections, Republicans made a net gain of 14 seats and the Democrats entered 2021 with a narrow 222–213 House majority. This was the first time since 2004 that the Republican Party made net gains in the House during a presidential election year.


text: Republicans exceeded expectations in the 2020 House elections, winning back a number of seats that they lost in 2018 while successfully defending competitive seats that Democrats had hoped to flip. No Republican incumbent was defeated for re-election, while 13 incumbent Democrats were ousted by Republicans; also, several successful Democratic candidates won by smaller-than-expected margins. Many have cited Trump's presence on the ballot as having fueled high Republican turnout, while others have emphasized the Republican Party's efforts to promote their female and minority candidates.


text: This constitutes the 11th election since the Civil War in which the victorious presidential party lost seats in the House, after the elections of 1868, 1884, 1892, 1896, 1908, 1960, 1988, 1992, 2000, and 2016.


text: As of 2022, this remains the last time that the Democrats have won a House election in Iowa or that Republicans have done so in Alaska or New Mexico.


text: The 2020 election results are compared below to the November 2018 election, in which only 434 seats were filled (the election results in one constituency were voided). The results summary below does not include blank and over/under votes which were included in the official results.


text: Four incumbents resigned in 2020, all of them Republicans, with no special elections to fill the vacant seats before the November election.


text: There were five special elections in 2020 to the 116th United States Congress, listed here by date and district.


text: The Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico is the only member of the United States House of Representatives who is elected for a four-year term.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene (PP), also known as polypropene, is a thermoplastic polymer used in a wide variety of applications. It is produced via chain-growth polymerization from the monomer propylene.


title: Polypropylene

text: belongs to the group of polyolefins and is partially crystalline and non-polar. Its properties are similar to polyethylene, but it is slightly harder and more heat-resistant. It is a white, mechanically rugged material and has a high chemical resistance.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene is the second-most widely produced commodity plastic (after polyethylene). In 2019, the global market for polypropylene was worth $126.03 billion. Revenues are expected to exceed US$145 billion by 2019. The sales of this material are forecast to grow at a rate of 5.8% per year until 2021.


title: Polypropylene

text: Phillips Petroleum chemists J. Paul Hogan and Robert Banks first demonstrated the polymerization of propylene in 1951. The stereoselective polymerization to the isotactic was discovered by Giulio Natta and Karl Rehn in March 1954. This pioneering discovery led to large-scale commercial production of isotactic polypropylene by the Italian firm Montecatini from 1957 onwards. Syndiotactic polypropylene was also first synthesized by Natta.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene is in many aspects similar to polyethylene, especially in solution behaviour and electrical properties. The methyl group improves mechanical properties and thermal resistance, although the chemical resistance decreases. The properties of polypropylene depend on the molecular weight and molecular weight distribution, crystallinity, type and proportion of comonomer (if used) and the isotacticity. In isotactic polypropylene, for example, the methyl groups are oriented on one side of the carbon backbone. This arrangement creates a greater degree of crystallinity and results in a stiffer material that is more resistant to creep than both atactic polypropylene and polyethylene.


title: Polypropylene

text: The density of PP is between 0.895 and 0.92 g/cm. Therefore, PP is the commodity plastic with the lowest density. With lower density, moldings parts with lower weight and more parts of a certain mass of plastic can be produced. Unlike polyethylene, crystalline and amorphous regions differ only slightly in their density. However, the density of polyethylene can significantly change with fillers.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene is normally tough and flexible, especially when copolymerized with ethylene. This allows polypropylene to be used as an engineering plastic, competing with materials such as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). Polypropylene is reasonably economical.


title: Polypropylene

text: The melting point of polypropylene occurs in a range, so the melting point is determined by finding the highest temperature of a differential scanning calorimetry chart. Perfectly isotactic PP has a melting point of . Commercial isotactic PP has a melting point that ranges from , depending on atactic material and crystallinity. Syndiotactic PP with a crystallinity of 30% has a melting point of . Below 0 °C, PP becomes brittle.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene at room temperature is resistant to fats and almost all organic solvents, apart from strong oxidants. Non-oxidizing acids and bases can be stored in containers made of PP. At elevated temperature, PP can be dissolved in nonpolar solvents such as xylene, tetralin and decalin. Due to the tertiary carbon atom PP is chemically less resistant than PE (see Markovnikov rule).


title: Polypropylene

text: Most commercial polypropylene is isotactic and has an intermediate level of crystallinity between that of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE). Isotactic & atactic polypropylene is soluble in "p"-xylene at 140 °C. Isotactic precipitates when the solution is cooled to 25 °C and atactic portion remains soluble in "p"-xylene.


title: Polypropylene

text: The melt flow rate (MFR) or melt flow index (MFI) is a measure of molecular weight of polypropylene. The measure helps to determine how easily the molten raw material will flow during processing. Polypropylene with higher MFR will fill the plastic mold more easily during the injection or blow-molding production process. As the melt flow increases, however, some physical properties, like impact strength, will decrease.


title: Polypropylene

text: There are three general types of polypropylene: homopolymer, random copolymer, and block copolymer. The comonomer is typically used with ethylene. Ethylene-propylene rubber or EPDM added to polypropylene homopolymer increases its low temperature impact strength. Randomly polymerized ethylene monomer added to polypropylene homopolymer decreases the polymer crystallinity, lowers the melting point and makes the polymer more transparent.


title: Polypropylene

text: The term tacticity describes for polypropylene how the methyl group is oriented in the polymer chain. Commercial polypropylene is usually isotactic. This article therefore always refers to isotactic polypropylene, unless stated otherwise. The tacticity is usually indicated in percent, using the isotactic index (according to DIN 16774). The index is measured by determining the fraction of the polymer insoluble in boiling heptane. Commercially available polypropylenes usually have an isotactic index between 85 and 95%. The tacticity effects the polymers physical properties. As the methyl group is in isotactic propylene consistently located at the same side, it forces the macromolecule in a helical shape, as also found in starch. An isotactic structure leads to a semi-crystalline polymer. The higher the isotacticity (the isotactic fraction), the greater the crystallinity, and thus also the softening point, rigidity, e-modulus and hardness.


title: Polypropylene

text: Atactic polypropylene, on the other hand, lacks any regularity which makes it unable to crystallize and amorphous.


title: Polypropylene

text: Isotactic polypropylene has a high degree of crystallinity, in industrial products 30–60%. Syndiotactic polypropylene is slightly less crystalline, atactic PP is amorphous (not crystalline).


title: Polypropylene

text: Is polypropylene can exist in various crystalline modifications which differ by the molecular arrangement of the polymer chains. The crystalline modifications are categorized into the α-, β- and γ-modification as well as mesomorphic (smectic) forms. The α-modifications is predominant in iPP. Such crystals are built from lamellae in the form of folded chains. A characteristic anomaly is that the lame are arranged in the so-called "cross-hatched" structure. The melting point of α-crystalline regions is given as 185 to 220 °C, the density as 0.936 to 0.946 g·cm. The β-modification is in comparison somewhat less ordered, as a result of which it forms faster and has a lower melting point of 170 to 200 °C. The formation of the β-modification can be promoted by nucleating agents, suitable temperatures and shear stress. The γ-modification is hardly formed under the conditions used in industry and is poorly understood. The mesomorphic modification, however, occurs often in industrial processing, since the plastic is usually cooled quickly. The degree of order of the mesomorphic phase ranges between the crystalline and the amorphous phase, its density is with 0.916 g·cm comparatively. The mesomorphic phase is considered as cause for the transparency in rapidly cooled films (due to low order and small crystallites).


title: Polypropylene

text: Syndiotactic polypropylene was discovered much later than isotactic PP and could only be prepared by using metallocene catalysts. Syndiotactic PP has a lower melting point, with 161 to 186 °C, depending on the degree of tacticity.


title: Polypropylene

text: Atactic polypropylene is amorphous and has therefore no crystal structure. Due to its lack of crystallinity, it is readily soluble even at moderate temperatures, which allows to separate it as by-product from isotactic polypropylene by extraction. However, the aPP obtained this way is not completely amorphous but can still contain 15% crystalline parts. Atactic polypropylene can also be produced selectively using metallocene catalysts, atactic polypropylene produced this way has a considerably higher molecular weight.


title: Polypropylene

text: Atactic polypropylene has lower density, melting point and softening temperature than the crystalline types and is tacky and rubber-like at room temperature. It is a colorless, cloudy material and can be used between −15 and +120 °C. Atactic polypropylene is used as a sealant, as an insulating material for automobiles and as an additive to bitumen.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene copolymers are in use as well. A particularly important one is polypropylene random copolymer (PPR or PP-R), a random copolymer with polyethylene used for plastic pipework.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene random crystallinity temperature (PP-RCT), also used for plastic pipework, is a new form of this plastic. It achieves higher strength at high temperature by β-crystallization.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene is liable to chain degradation from exposure to temperatures above 100 °C. Oxidation usually occurs at the tertiary carbon centers leading to chain breaking via reaction with oxygen. In external applications, degradation is evidenced by cracks and crazing. It may be protected by the use of various polymer stabilizers, including UV-absorbing additives and anti-oxidants such as phosphites (e.g. tris(2,4-di-tert-butylphenyl)phosphite) and hindered phenols, which prevent polymer degradation.


title: Polypropylene

text: Microbial communities isolated from soil samples mixed with starch have been shown to be capable of degrading polypropylene.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene has been reported to degrade while in the human body as implantable mesh devices. The degraded material forms a tree bark-like layer at the surface of mesh fibers.


title: Polypropylene

text: PP can be made translucent when uncolored but is not as readily made transparent as polystyrene, acrylic, or certain other plastics. It is often opaque or colored using pigments.


title: Polypropylene

text: The industrial production processes can be grouped into gas phase polymerization, bulk polymerization and slurry polymerization. All state-of-the-art processes use either gas-phase or bulk reactor systems.


title: Polypropylene

text: The properties of PP are strongly affected by its tacticity, the orientation of the methyl groups () relative to the methyl groups in neighboring monomer units (see above). The tacticity of polypropylene can be chosen by the choice of an appropriate catalyst.


title: Polypropylene

text: The properties of PP are strongly affected by its tacticity, the orientation of the methyl groups ( in the figure) relative to the methyl groups in neighboring monomer units. A Ziegler–Natta catalyst is able to restrict linking of monomer molecules to a specific orientation, either isotactic, when all methyl groups are positioned at the same side with respect to the backbone of the polymer chain, or syndiotactic, when the positions of the methyl groups alternate. Commercially available isotactic polypropylene is made with two types of Ziegler-Natta catalysts. The first group of the catalysts encompasses solid (mostly supported) catalysts and certain types of soluble metallocene catalysts. Such isotactic macromolecules coil into a helical shape; these helices then line up next to one another to form the crystals that give commercial isotactic polypropylene many of its desirable properties.


title: Polypropylene

text: Another type of metallocene catalysts produce syndiotactic polypropylene. These macromolecules also coil into helices (of a different type) and crystallize. Atactic polypropylene is an amorphous rubbery material. It can be produced commercially either with a special type of supported Ziegler-Natta catalyst or with some metallocene catalysts.


title: Polypropylene

text: Modern supported Ziegler-Natta catalysts developed for the polymerization of propylene and other 1-alkenes to isotactic polymers usually use as an active ingredient and as a support. The catalysts also contain organic modifiers, either aromatic acid esters and diesters or ethers. These catalysts are activated with special cocatalysts containing an organoaluminum compound such as Al(CH) and the second type of a modifier. The catalysts are differentiated depending on the procedure used for fashioning catalyst particles from MgCl and depending on the type of organic modifiers employed during catalyst preparation and use in polymerization reactions. Two most important technological characteristics of all the supported catalysts are high productivity and a high fraction of the crystalline isotactic polymer they produce at 70–80 °C under standard polymerization conditions. Commercial synthesis of isotactic polypropylene is usually carried out either in the medium of liquid propylene or in gas-phase reactors.


title: Polypropylene

text: Commercial synthesis of syndiotactic polypropylene is carried out with the use of a special class of metallocene catalysts. They employ bridged bis-metallocene complexes of the type bridge-(Cp)(Cp)ZrCl where the first Cp ligand is the cyclopentadienyl group, the second Cp ligand is the fluorenyl group, and the bridge between the two Cp ligands is -CH-CH-, >SiMe, or >SiPh. These complexes are converted to polymerization catalysts by activating them with a special organoaluminum cocatalyst, methylaluminoxane (MAO).


title: Polypropylene

text: Melting process of polypropylene can be achieved via extrusion and molding. Common extrusion methods include production of melt-blown and spun-bond fibers to form long rolls for future conversion into a wide range of useful products, such as face masks, filters, diapers and wipes.


title: Polypropylene

text: The most common shaping technique is injection molding, which is used for parts such as cups, cutlery, vials, caps, containers, housewares, and automotive parts such as batteries. The related techniques of blow molding and injection-stretch blow molding are also used, which involve both extrusion and molding.


title: Polypropylene

text: The large number of end-use applications for polypropylene are often possible because of the ability to tailor grades with specific molecular properties and additives during its manufacture. For example, antistatic additives can be added to help polypropylene surfaces resist dust and dirt. Many physical finishing techniques can also be used on polypropylene, such as machining. Surface treatments can be applied to polypropylene parts in order to promote adhesion of printing ink and paints.


title: Polypropylene

text: Expanded Polypropylene (EPP) has been produced through both solid and melt state processing. EPP is manufactured using melt processing with either chemical or physical blowing agents. Expansion of PP in solid state, due to its highly crystalline structure, has not been successful. In this regard, two novel strategies were developed for expansion of PP. It was observed that PP can be expanded to make EPP through controlling its crystalline structure or through blending with other polymers.


title: Polypropylene

text: When polypropylene film is extruded and stretched in both the machine direction and across machine direction it is called "biaxially oriented polypropylene". Two methods are widely used for producing BOPP films, namely, the tenter process and tubular process. Biaxial orientation increases strength and clarity. BOPP is widely used as a packaging material for packaging products such as snack foods, fresh produce and confectionery. It is easy to coat, print and laminate to give the required appearance and properties for use as a packaging material. This process is normally called converting. It is normally produced in large rolls which are slit on slitting machines into smaller rolls for use on packaging machines. BOPP is also used for stickers and labels in addition to OPP.


title: Polypropylene

text: It is non-reactive which makes BOPP suitable for safe use in the pharmaceutical and food industry. It is one of the most important commercial polyolefin films. BOPP films are available in different thicknesses and widths. They are transparent and flexible.


title: Polypropylene

text: As polypropylene is resistant to fatigue, most plastic living hinges, such as those on flip-top bottles, are made from this material. However, it is important to ensure that chain molecules are oriented across the hinge to maximise strength.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene is used in the manufacturing of piping systems, both ones concerned with high purity and ones designed for strength and rigidity (e.g., those intended for use in potable plumbing, hydronic heating and cooling, and reclaimed water). This material is often chosen for its resistance to corrosion and chemical leaching, its resilience against most forms of physical damage, including impact and freezing, its environmental benefits, and its ability to be joined by heat fusion rather than gluing.


title: Polypropylene

text: Many plastic items for medical or laboratory use can be made from polypropylene because it can withstand the heat in an autoclave. Its heat resistance also enables it to be used as the manufacturing material of consumer-grade kettles. Food containers made from it will not melt in the dishwasher, and do not melt during industrial hot filling processes. For this reason, most plastic tubs for dairy products are polypropylene sealed with aluminum foil (both heat-resistant materials). After the product has cooled, the tubs are often given lids made of a less heat-resistant material, such as LDPE or polystyrene. Such containers provide a good hands-on example of the difference in modulus, since the rubbery (softer, more flexible) feeling of LDPE with respect to polypropylene of the same thickness is readily apparent. Rugged, translucent, reusable plastic containers made in a wide variety of shapes and sizes for consumers from various companies such as Rubbermaid and Sterilite are commonly made of polypropylene, although the lids are often made of somewhat more flexible LDPE so they can snap onto the container to close it. Polypropylene can also be made into disposable bottles to contain liquid, powdered, or similar consumer products, although HDPE and polyethylene terephthalate are commonly also used to make bottles. Plastic pails, car batteries, wastebaskets, pharmacy prescription bottles, cooler containers, dishes and pitchers are often made of polypropylene or HDPE, both of which commonly have rather similar appearance, feel, and properties at ambient temperature. A diversity of medical devices are made from PP.


title: Polypropylene

text: A common application for polypropylene is as biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP). These BOPP sheets are used to make a wide variety of materials including clear bags. When polypropylene is biaxially oriented, it becomes crystal clear and serves as an excellent packaging material for artistic and retail products.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene, highly colorfast, is widely used in manufacturing carpets, rugs and mats to be used at home.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene is widely used in ropes, distinctive because they are light enough to float in water. For equal mass and construction, polypropylene rope is similar in strength to polyester rope. Polypropylene costs less than most other synthetic fibers.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene is also used as an alternative to polyvinyl chloride (PVC) as insulation for electrical cables for LSZH cable in low-ventilation environments, primarily tunnels. This is because it emits less smoke and no toxic halogens, which may lead to production of acid in high-temperature conditions.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene is also used in particular roofing membranes as the waterproofing top layer of single-ply systems as opposed to modified-bit systems.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene is most commonly used for plastic moldings, wherein it is injected into a mold while molten, forming complex shapes at relatively low cost and high volume; examples include bottle tops, bottles, and fittings.


title: Polypropylene

text: It can also be produced in sheet form, widely used for the production of stationery folders, packaging, and storage boxes. The wide color range, durability, low cost, and resistance to dirt make it ideal as a protective cover for papers and other materials. It is used in Rubik's Cube stickers because of these characteristics.


title: Polypropylene

text: The availability of sheet polypropylene has provided an opportunity for the use of the material by designers. The light-weight, durable, and colorful plastic makes an ideal medium for the creation of light shades, and a number of designs have been developed using interlocking sections to create elaborate designs.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene sheets are a popular choice for trading card collectors; these come with pockets (nine for standard-size cards) for the cards to be inserted and are used to protect their condition and are meant to be stored in a binder.


title: Polypropylene

text: Expanded polypropylene (EPP) is a foam form of polypropylene. EPP has very good impact characteristics due to its low stiffness; this allows EPP to resume its shape after impacts. EPP is extensively used in model aircraft and other radio controlled vehicles by hobbyists. This is mainly due to its ability to absorb impacts, making this an ideal material for RC aircraft for beginners and amateurs.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene is used in the manufacture of loudspeaker drive units. Its use was pioneered by engineers at the BBC and the patent rights subsequently purchased by Mission Electronics for use in their Mission Freedom Loudspeaker and Mission 737 Renaissance loudspeaker.


title: Polypropylene

text: Polypropylene fibres are used as a concrete additive to increase strength and reduce cracking and spalling. In some areas susceptible to earthquakes (e.g., California), PP fibers are added with soils to improve the soil's strength and damping when constructing the foundation of structures such as buildings, bridges, etc.