That was a good week Chas. I was amazed by the drummer until I read the rest. :laugh:
Marc
Re:Chas's Music Column - Bumber December Issue W/E 15th, 22nd & 29thr
Week In Review
April 8, 2010
Big Apple Zappa Crappa … Stones' Rockers Shanghai'd … Spector's Sound of Prison Walls …
This is the week that was in matters musical…
1933, at New York City's Academy of Music, Bell engineers demonstrate the realism of stereo before an audience of 300 guests who had come to listen the Philadelphia Orchestra … facing a darkened stage, the audience listens to Wagner's Gotterdammerung … when the lights come up, the stage is empty and an engineer explains the orchestra was performing in the soundproof basement with the performance piped to loudspeakers onstage …
1940, the number one hit this day is "In The Mood" by the Glenn Miller Orchestra …
1954, Bill Haley & His Comets first recording session for Decca is held at the Pythian Temple studio in New York City and results in the track "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" … the track, which melds hillbilly and R&B ingredients will own the top spot on the Billboard chart for eight weeks and be considered by many to mark the beginning of rock 'n' roll …
1956, while performing before an all-white audience at the Birmingham, Alabama, Municipal Auditorium, Nat "King" Cole is attacked by a group of racists who knock him off his piano bench and beat him … a shaken Cole returns to the stage a few minutes later to a five-minute standing ovation … however he does not complete the set … later that night he performs for an all-black audience … C.L. Fender is granted patent # 2,741,146 by the U.S. Patent Office for a "Tremolo Device For Stringed Instruments" more popularly known as the Fender Stratocaster vibrato tailpiece or whammy bar … later to become known as Soul Brother Number One, Mr. Dynamite himself, and the Hardest Working Man in Show Business, James Brown charts for the first time with "Please, Please, Please" …
1961, Bob Dylan makes his professional New York City singing debut in Greenwich Village at Gerde's Folk City, opening for John Lee Hooker … he performs "House of the Rising Sun" and "Song to Woody" … Joan Baez joins him for the second number …
1963, The Drifters cut a topical Lieber-Stoller song titled "Only in America" with lyrics obliquely referring to race issues it's deemed a hot potato … the black group's vocals are edited off the track and replaced with those of Jay & the Americans, a white group … thought to be lost, the Drifters' version turns up as a bonus track on a Jay & The Americans CD in 1983 …
1964, The Beatles occupy a record-breaking 14 spots on the U.S. charts ranging from #1 down to #81 … "Can't Buy Me Love" (1), "Twist and Shout" (2), "She Loves You" (4), "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (7), "Please Please Me" (9), "Do You Want to Know a Secret" (14), "I Saw Her Standing There" (38), "You Can't Do That" (48), "All My Loving" (50), "From Me to You" (52), "Thank You Girl" (61), "There's a Place" (74), "Roll Over Beethoven" (78) and "Love Me Do" (81) … a struggling young act called The Detours auditions for England's Fontana Records … they go on to release some tracks with the label under the moniker The High Numbers, but it isn't until they become known as The Who that they will make a serious impression on the rock world …
1966, Jan Berry, half of the duo Jan & Dean notable for their many car-related hit songs, wipes out his Corvette and suffers major head injuries that lead to paralysis and a long hard road to recovery …
1967, Paul McCartney records munching noises for Brian Wilson's "Vegetables" from the not-soon-to-be-released Smile album …
1968, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention perform at the National Academy of Arts and Sciences Dinner in New York … Zappa makes some cutting remarks, terming the event, "a load of pompous hokum …All year long you people have manufactured this crap, now for one night you're gonna have to listen to it!" … recalling the event later, Zappa says, "We played the ugliest sh*t we could … that's what they expected us to play" …
1970, Paul McCartney uses the release of his first solo album McCartney as the occasion to announce that he's leaving The Beatles …
1973, Neil Young's Journey Through The Past premieres at the U.S. Film Festival in Dallas …the film is an autobiographical documentary, consisting mainly of footage and images captured throughout his career … Young sketchily describes it as "a collection of thoughts. Every scene meant something to me—although with some of them I can't say what" …
1976, Patti Smith's whips out her poetic license for a first single, a version of garage rock classic "Gloria" … she tranforms the song into more of a loft interpretation that starts slowly like a poetry reading set to music and eventually builds to a satisfying, rocking climax …
1994, In Utero, Nirvana's third full-length studio album, is certified double-platinum …
1997, A&M Records issues a press release stating that Soundgarden has chosen to "disband to pursue other interests" … the president of A&M, Al Cafaro, gives the band this send off: "Throughout the flash, hype and turmoil, as this scene conquered the musical world, Soundgarden handled themselves with intelligence, integrity and nobility. They were able to present their music and their world view with passion and honesty." … 'nuff said
1999, Yoko Ono and Capitol Records sue Frederic Seaman, a former Lennon assistant, claiming that he stole personal and sentimental items of Lennon's with plans to exploit them after the Beatle's death … after a year in the grave, the body of Tammy Wynette is exhumed and autopsied as the result of $50 million wrongful death civil suit brought against the country singer's doctor by her daughters … the medical examiner says she died of natural causes and the case is settled out of court …
2000, George Lucas' Lucasfilm Ltd. sues Dr. Dre for a sound claiming the artist used its trademarked "THX Deep Note" sound on his Dr. Dre 2001 album without permission … Star magazine reports that Screamin' Jay Hawkins' dying wish was that his 57 children, the result of many liaisons, meet one another…the bluesman had claimed before his death that at the height of his career he had engaged in sex on average 14 times a day …
2005, The musical Lennon, based on the Beatle's life, debuts in San Francisco to mixed reviews and anemic ticket sales …a planned run in Boston is canceled so that the storyline can be revised … according to writer director Don Scardino, "I was a little surprised to learn that a lot of people are not familiar with John's life story" … Mariah Carey stages a major comeback with the release of her new album The Emancipation of Mimi … it debuts at number one, goes six times platinum in less than a year, and becomes the most successful album of 2005 …
2006, former assistant to producer Phil Spector, Michelle Blaine, sues her former boss for $5 million contending that he badgered her to marry him so that she could not be forced to testify at his pending trial for the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson … Spector will win a judgment in 2007 against Blaine for embezzlement of $900,000 from his pension fund … The Rolling Stones play China for the first time performing for 8,000 ecstatic fans in Shanghai … with ticket prices topping out around $400, many attendees are foreign nationals—the tariff is too steep for most Chinese for whom that would represent several month's income … conspicuously absent from the Stones' set list are "Rough Justice," "Let's Spend the Night Together," "Brown Sugar," "Honky Tonk Woman," and Beast of Burden"—all deemed too indecent for Chinese ears by government authorities … about those forbidden songs, Mick Jagger says, "I am pleased that the Ministry of Culture is protecting the morals of expatriate bankers and their girlfriends" …
2007, the Tennessee home of late country icon Johnny Cash burns down as renovations were under way for its new owner, Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees … Gibb had planned to preserve the house in honor of Cash's memory …
2008, Bob Dylan is awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture" … it took nearly a half century of recording and 33 album releases before Van Morrison can savor landing in the Billboard album top ten chart with his newest disc, Keep it Simple, a brew of blues, R&B, and Celtic soul … Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello hits the road with friends including Slash, Perry Farrell, and Maynard James Keenan of Tool on a seven-date Justice Tour raising money for local charities … commenting on the thrust of the shows, he says, "Politics are going to be discussed, but this is not a college lecture. They are freedom parties, where we're not going to only fight the power but rock the f**k out" …
2009, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Phil Spector is convicted of second-degree murder in the 2003 shooting death of girlfriend Lana Clarkson … a mistrial was declared in Spector's first trial in September 2007 … in closing arguments at the retrial, prosecutor Truc Do called Spector "a very dangerous man" who "has a history of playing Russian roulette with women—six women. Lana just happened to be the sixth" … Spector is sentenced 19 years to life … he is currently serving his sentence at the same California prison Charles Manson is being held …
…and that was the week that was.
Arrivals:
April 8: Carmen McRae (1922), Jimmy Witherspoon (1923), Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel (1929), Steve Howe (1947), Izzy Stradlin of Guns N' Roses (1962), Julian Lennon (1963), Biz Markie born Marcel Hall (1964), Children of Bodom guitarist Alexi "Wildchild" Laiho (1979)
April 9: guitarist-songster Mance Lipscomb (1895), "Twist and Shout" songwriter Phil Medley (1916), Carl Perkins (1932), Rockin' Sidney (1938), Grand Funk progenitor Terry Knight (1943), drummer Gene Parsons (1944), Chico Ryan of Sha-Na-Na (1948), producer Alex Sadkin (1949), Kevin Martin of Candlebox (1969)
April 10: novelty singer Sheb Wooley (1921), Nate Nelson of The Platters (1932), Glen Campbell (1936), Righteous Brother Bobby Hatfield (1940), Bunny "Wailer" Livingston of Bob Marley and the Wailers (1947), Ernest "Snuffy" Stewart, keyboardist with KC and The Sunshine Band (1950), Dave Peverett of Foghat (1950), funk guitarist Eddie Hazel (1950), Steve Gustafson of 10,000 Maniacs (1957), Brian Setzer (1959), Babyface (1959), Afrika Bambaataa (1960), R&B soul artist Kenny Lattimore (1970), Mike Mushok of Staind (1970), Mandy Moore (1984)
April 11: "Louie Louie" composer Richard Berry (1935), Mark Stein of Vanilla Fudge (1947), Chris Difford of Squeeze (1954), ska singer Neville Staples of The Specials (1956), Stuart Adamson of Big Country (1958), Douglas Hopkins of the Gin Blossoms (1961), Nigel Pulsford of Bush (1963), R&B singer Lisa Stansfield (1966), Dylan Keefe of Marcy Playground (1970), R&B singer-songwriter Joss Stone (1987)
April 12: slide guitarist Hound Dog Taylor (1915), singer, multi-instrumentalist, and orchestra leader Billy Vaughn (1919), Tiny Tim, born Herbert Khaury (1930), Herbie Hancock (1940), John Kay of Steppenwolf (1944), David Cassidy (1950), Alexander Briley of The Village People (1951), guitarist Pat Travers (1954), country singer Vince Gill (1957), Will Sergeant of Echo and the Bunnymen (1958), Art Alexakis of Everclear (1962), Amy Ray of Indigo Girls (1964), Marc Ford of The Black Crowes (1966), Nick Hexum of 311 (1970)
April 13: violinist Olga Rudge (1895), Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane (1944), Lowell George of Little Feat (1945), R&B artist Al Green (1946), Roy Loney of the Flamin' Groovies (1946), Jim Pons of the Turtles and The Mothers of Invention (1946), R&B singer Peabo Bryson (1951), Max Weinberg of the E Street Band (1951), Jimmy Destri of Blondie (1954), Louis Johnson of The Brothers Johnson (1955), Wayne Lewis of Atlantic Starr (1957), Tony James of Generation X (1958), Hillel Slovak, The Red Hot Chili Peppers' original guitarist (1962), Aaron Lewis of Staind (1972), Latin pop musician Lou Bega (1975)
April 14: Willie Harris, guitarist with The Clovers (1925), rockabilly Buddy Knox (1933), Loretta Lynn (1935), Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore (1944), Joey Pesce of 'Til Tuesday (1962), UFO guitarist Vinnie Moore (1964), Carl Hunter of The Farm (1965)
Departures:
April 8: David "Pop" Winans, gospel music patriarch, father of BeBe and CeCe (2009), DJ and "Heartbreak Hotel" writer Mae Axton (1997), Laura Nyro (1997), drummer Billy Gayles (1993)
April 9: Randy Cain, founding member of The Delfonics (2009), cellist Tom Cora (1998), Buzzcocks and Joy Division producer Martin Hannett (1991), Dave Prater of Sam & Dave (1988), singer-songwriter Brook Benton (1988), folksinger Phil Ochs (1976)
April 10: rapper Proof (born Deshaun Holton) of D12 (2006), singer Little Eva, born Eva Narcissus Boyd of the mega hit "The Loco-motion" (2003), Leon Peels, lead singer of The Blue Jays (1999), black radio pioneer Eddie O'Jay (1998), "Philadelphia sound" songwriter Linda Creed (1986), Stu Sutcliffe, original bassist with The Beatles (1962), R&B performer-songwriter Chuck Willis (1958)
April 11: June Pointer of The Pointer Sisters (2006), steel guitarist Jerry Byrd (2005), guitarist-oudist Sandy Bull (2001), pop singer Lillian Briggs (1998), Samie "Sticks" Evans, session drummer with Ray Charles and James Brown (1994)
April 12: Texas R&B singer-guitarist Peppermint Harris (1999), country music artist Boxcar Willie a.k.a. Lecil Travis Martin (1999), Herbert Mills of the Mills Brothers (1989), singer-entertainer Josephine Baker (1975)
April 13: Chuck Berry pianist Johnnie Johnson (2005), writer-producer Ritchie Cordell (2004), Todd Storz, instigator of the Top 40 radio format (1964)
April 14: crooner and bandleader Don Ho (2007), actor and crooner Anthony Newley (1999), folk singer Burl Ives (1995), R&B singer Thurston Harris (1990), Pete Farndon of The Pretenders (1983)
April 8, 2010
Big Apple Zappa Crappa … Stones' Rockers Shanghai'd … Spector's Sound of Prison Walls …
This is the week that was in matters musical…
1933, at New York City's Academy of Music, Bell engineers demonstrate the realism of stereo before an audience of 300 guests who had come to listen the Philadelphia Orchestra … facing a darkened stage, the audience listens to Wagner's Gotterdammerung … when the lights come up, the stage is empty and an engineer explains the orchestra was performing in the soundproof basement with the performance piped to loudspeakers onstage …
1940, the number one hit this day is "In The Mood" by the Glenn Miller Orchestra …
1954, Bill Haley & His Comets first recording session for Decca is held at the Pythian Temple studio in New York City and results in the track "(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock" … the track, which melds hillbilly and R&B ingredients will own the top spot on the Billboard chart for eight weeks and be considered by many to mark the beginning of rock 'n' roll …
1956, while performing before an all-white audience at the Birmingham, Alabama, Municipal Auditorium, Nat "King" Cole is attacked by a group of racists who knock him off his piano bench and beat him … a shaken Cole returns to the stage a few minutes later to a five-minute standing ovation … however he does not complete the set … later that night he performs for an all-black audience … C.L. Fender is granted patent # 2,741,146 by the U.S. Patent Office for a "Tremolo Device For Stringed Instruments" more popularly known as the Fender Stratocaster vibrato tailpiece or whammy bar … later to become known as Soul Brother Number One, Mr. Dynamite himself, and the Hardest Working Man in Show Business, James Brown charts for the first time with "Please, Please, Please" …
1961, Bob Dylan makes his professional New York City singing debut in Greenwich Village at Gerde's Folk City, opening for John Lee Hooker … he performs "House of the Rising Sun" and "Song to Woody" … Joan Baez joins him for the second number …
1963, The Drifters cut a topical Lieber-Stoller song titled "Only in America" with lyrics obliquely referring to race issues it's deemed a hot potato … the black group's vocals are edited off the track and replaced with those of Jay & the Americans, a white group … thought to be lost, the Drifters' version turns up as a bonus track on a Jay & The Americans CD in 1983 …
1964, The Beatles occupy a record-breaking 14 spots on the U.S. charts ranging from #1 down to #81 … "Can't Buy Me Love" (1), "Twist and Shout" (2), "She Loves You" (4), "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (7), "Please Please Me" (9), "Do You Want to Know a Secret" (14), "I Saw Her Standing There" (38), "You Can't Do That" (48), "All My Loving" (50), "From Me to You" (52), "Thank You Girl" (61), "There's a Place" (74), "Roll Over Beethoven" (78) and "Love Me Do" (81) … a struggling young act called The Detours auditions for England's Fontana Records … they go on to release some tracks with the label under the moniker The High Numbers, but it isn't until they become known as The Who that they will make a serious impression on the rock world …
1966, Jan Berry, half of the duo Jan & Dean notable for their many car-related hit songs, wipes out his Corvette and suffers major head injuries that lead to paralysis and a long hard road to recovery …
1967, Paul McCartney records munching noises for Brian Wilson's "Vegetables" from the not-soon-to-be-released Smile album …
1968, Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention perform at the National Academy of Arts and Sciences Dinner in New York … Zappa makes some cutting remarks, terming the event, "a load of pompous hokum …All year long you people have manufactured this crap, now for one night you're gonna have to listen to it!" … recalling the event later, Zappa says, "We played the ugliest sh*t we could … that's what they expected us to play" …
1970, Paul McCartney uses the release of his first solo album McCartney as the occasion to announce that he's leaving The Beatles …
1973, Neil Young's Journey Through The Past premieres at the U.S. Film Festival in Dallas …the film is an autobiographical documentary, consisting mainly of footage and images captured throughout his career … Young sketchily describes it as "a collection of thoughts. Every scene meant something to me—although with some of them I can't say what" …
1976, Patti Smith's whips out her poetic license for a first single, a version of garage rock classic "Gloria" … she tranforms the song into more of a loft interpretation that starts slowly like a poetry reading set to music and eventually builds to a satisfying, rocking climax …
1994, In Utero, Nirvana's third full-length studio album, is certified double-platinum …
1997, A&M Records issues a press release stating that Soundgarden has chosen to "disband to pursue other interests" … the president of A&M, Al Cafaro, gives the band this send off: "Throughout the flash, hype and turmoil, as this scene conquered the musical world, Soundgarden handled themselves with intelligence, integrity and nobility. They were able to present their music and their world view with passion and honesty." … 'nuff said
1999, Yoko Ono and Capitol Records sue Frederic Seaman, a former Lennon assistant, claiming that he stole personal and sentimental items of Lennon's with plans to exploit them after the Beatle's death … after a year in the grave, the body of Tammy Wynette is exhumed and autopsied as the result of $50 million wrongful death civil suit brought against the country singer's doctor by her daughters … the medical examiner says she died of natural causes and the case is settled out of court …
2000, George Lucas' Lucasfilm Ltd. sues Dr. Dre for a sound claiming the artist used its trademarked "THX Deep Note" sound on his Dr. Dre 2001 album without permission … Star magazine reports that Screamin' Jay Hawkins' dying wish was that his 57 children, the result of many liaisons, meet one another…the bluesman had claimed before his death that at the height of his career he had engaged in sex on average 14 times a day …
2005, The musical Lennon, based on the Beatle's life, debuts in San Francisco to mixed reviews and anemic ticket sales …a planned run in Boston is canceled so that the storyline can be revised … according to writer director Don Scardino, "I was a little surprised to learn that a lot of people are not familiar with John's life story" … Mariah Carey stages a major comeback with the release of her new album The Emancipation of Mimi … it debuts at number one, goes six times platinum in less than a year, and becomes the most successful album of 2005 …
2006, former assistant to producer Phil Spector, Michelle Blaine, sues her former boss for $5 million contending that he badgered her to marry him so that she could not be forced to testify at his pending trial for the 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson … Spector will win a judgment in 2007 against Blaine for embezzlement of $900,000 from his pension fund … The Rolling Stones play China for the first time performing for 8,000 ecstatic fans in Shanghai … with ticket prices topping out around $400, many attendees are foreign nationals—the tariff is too steep for most Chinese for whom that would represent several month's income … conspicuously absent from the Stones' set list are "Rough Justice," "Let's Spend the Night Together," "Brown Sugar," "Honky Tonk Woman," and Beast of Burden"—all deemed too indecent for Chinese ears by government authorities … about those forbidden songs, Mick Jagger says, "I am pleased that the Ministry of Culture is protecting the morals of expatriate bankers and their girlfriends" …
2007, the Tennessee home of late country icon Johnny Cash burns down as renovations were under way for its new owner, Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees … Gibb had planned to preserve the house in honor of Cash's memory …
2008, Bob Dylan is awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture" … it took nearly a half century of recording and 33 album releases before Van Morrison can savor landing in the Billboard album top ten chart with his newest disc, Keep it Simple, a brew of blues, R&B, and Celtic soul … Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello hits the road with friends including Slash, Perry Farrell, and Maynard James Keenan of Tool on a seven-date Justice Tour raising money for local charities … commenting on the thrust of the shows, he says, "Politics are going to be discussed, but this is not a college lecture. They are freedom parties, where we're not going to only fight the power but rock the f**k out" …
2009, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Phil Spector is convicted of second-degree murder in the 2003 shooting death of girlfriend Lana Clarkson … a mistrial was declared in Spector's first trial in September 2007 … in closing arguments at the retrial, prosecutor Truc Do called Spector "a very dangerous man" who "has a history of playing Russian roulette with women—six women. Lana just happened to be the sixth" … Spector is sentenced 19 years to life … he is currently serving his sentence at the same California prison Charles Manson is being held …
…and that was the week that was.
Arrivals:
April 8: Carmen McRae (1922), Jimmy Witherspoon (1923), Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel (1929), Steve Howe (1947), Izzy Stradlin of Guns N' Roses (1962), Julian Lennon (1963), Biz Markie born Marcel Hall (1964), Children of Bodom guitarist Alexi "Wildchild" Laiho (1979)
April 9: guitarist-songster Mance Lipscomb (1895), "Twist and Shout" songwriter Phil Medley (1916), Carl Perkins (1932), Rockin' Sidney (1938), Grand Funk progenitor Terry Knight (1943), drummer Gene Parsons (1944), Chico Ryan of Sha-Na-Na (1948), producer Alex Sadkin (1949), Kevin Martin of Candlebox (1969)
April 10: novelty singer Sheb Wooley (1921), Nate Nelson of The Platters (1932), Glen Campbell (1936), Righteous Brother Bobby Hatfield (1940), Bunny "Wailer" Livingston of Bob Marley and the Wailers (1947), Ernest "Snuffy" Stewart, keyboardist with KC and The Sunshine Band (1950), Dave Peverett of Foghat (1950), funk guitarist Eddie Hazel (1950), Steve Gustafson of 10,000 Maniacs (1957), Brian Setzer (1959), Babyface (1959), Afrika Bambaataa (1960), R&B soul artist Kenny Lattimore (1970), Mike Mushok of Staind (1970), Mandy Moore (1984)
April 11: "Louie Louie" composer Richard Berry (1935), Mark Stein of Vanilla Fudge (1947), Chris Difford of Squeeze (1954), ska singer Neville Staples of The Specials (1956), Stuart Adamson of Big Country (1958), Douglas Hopkins of the Gin Blossoms (1961), Nigel Pulsford of Bush (1963), R&B singer Lisa Stansfield (1966), Dylan Keefe of Marcy Playground (1970), R&B singer-songwriter Joss Stone (1987)
April 12: slide guitarist Hound Dog Taylor (1915), singer, multi-instrumentalist, and orchestra leader Billy Vaughn (1919), Tiny Tim, born Herbert Khaury (1930), Herbie Hancock (1940), John Kay of Steppenwolf (1944), David Cassidy (1950), Alexander Briley of The Village People (1951), guitarist Pat Travers (1954), country singer Vince Gill (1957), Will Sergeant of Echo and the Bunnymen (1958), Art Alexakis of Everclear (1962), Amy Ray of Indigo Girls (1964), Marc Ford of The Black Crowes (1966), Nick Hexum of 311 (1970)
April 13: violinist Olga Rudge (1895), Jack Casady of Jefferson Airplane (1944), Lowell George of Little Feat (1945), R&B artist Al Green (1946), Roy Loney of the Flamin' Groovies (1946), Jim Pons of the Turtles and The Mothers of Invention (1946), R&B singer Peabo Bryson (1951), Max Weinberg of the E Street Band (1951), Jimmy Destri of Blondie (1954), Louis Johnson of The Brothers Johnson (1955), Wayne Lewis of Atlantic Starr (1957), Tony James of Generation X (1958), Hillel Slovak, The Red Hot Chili Peppers' original guitarist (1962), Aaron Lewis of Staind (1972), Latin pop musician Lou Bega (1975)
April 14: Willie Harris, guitarist with The Clovers (1925), rockabilly Buddy Knox (1933), Loretta Lynn (1935), Deep Purple's Ritchie Blackmore (1944), Joey Pesce of 'Til Tuesday (1962), UFO guitarist Vinnie Moore (1964), Carl Hunter of The Farm (1965)
Departures:
April 8: David "Pop" Winans, gospel music patriarch, father of BeBe and CeCe (2009), DJ and "Heartbreak Hotel" writer Mae Axton (1997), Laura Nyro (1997), drummer Billy Gayles (1993)
April 9: Randy Cain, founding member of The Delfonics (2009), cellist Tom Cora (1998), Buzzcocks and Joy Division producer Martin Hannett (1991), Dave Prater of Sam & Dave (1988), singer-songwriter Brook Benton (1988), folksinger Phil Ochs (1976)
April 10: rapper Proof (born Deshaun Holton) of D12 (2006), singer Little Eva, born Eva Narcissus Boyd of the mega hit "The Loco-motion" (2003), Leon Peels, lead singer of The Blue Jays (1999), black radio pioneer Eddie O'Jay (1998), "Philadelphia sound" songwriter Linda Creed (1986), Stu Sutcliffe, original bassist with The Beatles (1962), R&B performer-songwriter Chuck Willis (1958)
April 11: June Pointer of The Pointer Sisters (2006), steel guitarist Jerry Byrd (2005), guitarist-oudist Sandy Bull (2001), pop singer Lillian Briggs (1998), Samie "Sticks" Evans, session drummer with Ray Charles and James Brown (1994)
April 12: Texas R&B singer-guitarist Peppermint Harris (1999), country music artist Boxcar Willie a.k.a. Lecil Travis Martin (1999), Herbert Mills of the Mills Brothers (1989), singer-entertainer Josephine Baker (1975)
April 13: Chuck Berry pianist Johnnie Johnson (2005), writer-producer Ritchie Cordell (2004), Todd Storz, instigator of the Top 40 radio format (1964)
April 14: crooner and bandleader Don Ho (2007), actor and crooner Anthony Newley (1999), folk singer Burl Ives (1995), R&B singer Thurston Harris (1990), Pete Farndon of The Pretenders (1983)
Week In Review
April 15, 2010
Yogi Bore … NY Waxes Roth … Actionable Jackson …
This is the week that was in matters musical…
1941, jazz musician Sidney Bechet records two saxophone parts, clarinet, bass, piano, and drums on a recording of "The Sheik of Araby" … the multitrack performance is achieved in the days before audio tape … Bechet records his first instrument on a wax disc, then plays his second instrumental part while the first disc is replayed … both parts are recorded onto a second disc … each successive part required recording onto a new disc … the result is a master disc with the original instrumental track six generations down and barely audible …
1956, following Elvis' show at the Memorial Coliseum in Corpus Christi, Texas, the venue's manager vows that'll be the last rock 'n' roll show to besmirch his stage … he is reacting to complaints from fans and parents who condemn the performance as "vulgar" … Buddy Holly's first single, "Blue Days, Black Nights," is released …
1959, the first Flying Vs are shipped to dealers from Gibson's factory in Kalamazoo … initially, the radical design doesn't fly with the guitar-buying public and retailers … however, proving Gibson is ahead of its time, the Flying V eventually becomes an icon of heavy metal …
1960, Elvis Presley boards a train this day from Memphis to Los Angeles to begin filming a movie … he is taking the train because he has developed a fear of flying … or because if it happens, he wants to be the first big star to die in a train wreck … of course that honor will be taken by Eddie Murphy in The Adventures of Pluto Nash … perhaps it's no coincidence that Elvis is Murphy's favorite singer …
1961, a raucous quartet of rockers makes its debut at Liverpool's Cavern Club … it'll be another three years before The Beatles become a household name … also on the bill are The Swinging Blue Jeans who will later score a hit with "Hippy Hippy Shake" …
1966, The Lovin' Spoonful perform at the Marquee in London … John Lennon and George Harrison attend … while at the show George meets Eric Clapton for the second time and a lifelong friendship ensues …
1968, John Lennon and George Harrison, along with their wives, leave Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Indian ashram two weeks before their studies were due to be completed … Paul and Ringo had already split … word later leaks that the Fab Four had grown disenchanted with the spiritual advisor …
1969, Desmond Dekker & The Aces move into the #1 spot on the U.K. singles chart with "The Israelites" … it's the first Jamaican act to enjoy that role …
1970, The New York Times reports that Catholic and Protestant youth groups have adopted The Beatles' Yellow Submarine as a religious symbol …
1971, Carly Simon charts for the first time with "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" … it's the first of 23 hits she will have …
1972, Electric Light Orchestra plays live for the first time at the Greyhound Club in Surrey, England …
1978, four days after collapsing at a friend's house, British folk rock pioneer Sandy Denny dies at the Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon, London … her death is ruled to be the result of a traumatic mid-brain hemorrhage … Denny is considered a founder of the British folk rock movement and perhaps its most important female singer and personality … she is also noted for her duet with Robert Plant on Led Zeppelin's fourth album in 1971, on the song "The Battle of Evermore" … she is the only guest vocalist ever to appear on a Led Zeppelin album …
1979, lighting director Billy Duffy is killed at a Kate Bush concert when he falls 20 feet through an open trap door onstage …
1980, Bob Marley and The Wailers play in Salisbury, Zimbabwe, for Independence Day festivities … the first five spots in the country chart are occupied by women for the first time ever: they are Crystal Gayle, Dottie West, Debbie Boone, Emmylou Harris, and Tammy Wynette …
1981, Gary U.S. Bonds releases "This Little Girl" … the song was written and co-produced by Bruce Springsteen who had long been a Bonds fan … it will reach number 11 and become Bonds' first chart hit in 19 years … John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas receives a five-year sentence on drug charges … all but 30 days will be suspended and Phillips will embark on a lecture tour warning school kids about the dangers of drugs …
1982, in the latest in a series of wrecks, Billy Joel collides his motorcycle with a car … he is hospitalized and has surgery on a broken wrist … The Clash cancel a tour when guitarist Joe Strummer goes missing … he is eventually tracked down in Paris by a private detective, saying he "wanted a break" …
1989, Roy Orbison's single "You Got It" enters the top ten on the pop charts … it's his first such hit in 24 years … unfortunately he is unable to enjoy his revival having died four months earlier …
1993, Elton John's single "A Simple Life" climbs to #30 on the pop chart … it will ultimately top out at #10 and give the British rocker the distinction of being the only artist to enjoy Top 40 hits for 24 years straight while surpassing Elvis' 23 … police arrest David Lee Roth in New York City for buying a $10 bag of marijuana … Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann saves a young surfer from a California riptide …
1996, tickets go on sale for the KISS reunion tour … this marks the first time in 15 years that all four original members of the '70s rock group join together in original costumes and face paint … half of Jerry Garcia's ashes are scattered beneath San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge …
1998, Sir Paul loses Linda to cancer … a tornado roars through downtown Nashville, forcing a video shoot for country singer David Kersh to a halt as everyone runs for cover …
1999, Shania Twain is the first woman to be honored as songwriter/artist of the year by the Nashville Songwriters Association International during the 32nd Annual Songwriter Achievement Awards in Nashville …
2001, Peter Buck runs amuck on a Seattle-to-London flight … after quaffing 14 glasses of wine, the R.E.M guitarist overturns a food cart, mistakes a stranger for his wife, smashes crockery, and tussles with crew members … in the ensuing British trial, Buck testifies that he has no memory of the events saying, "All I know is, I woke up and I am covered in cream." …
2004, Michael Jackson is indicted by the grand jury of the county of Santa Barbara, CA, on charges of child molestation …
2005, rapper DMX, aka Earl Simmons, is arrested following an accident on a Bronx expressway that injured three people, including two police officers … giving new meaning to the words rap sheet, his non-musical activities include multiple arrests for drug possession, animal cruelty, unlicensed driving, reckless driving, and identity falsification, plus, he's expanded his repertoire with criminal impersonation, criminal possession of a weapon, criminal mischief, menacing, driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol while claiming to be a federal agent and attempting to carjack a vehicle, theft, aggravated assault, and violating parole … hip-hop star Jay-Z introduces a line of watches including a limited-edition model that will go for $70,000 a pop … the bling is the thing wherein Jay-Z will catch the wallet of the king … Reebok pulls a TV ad featuring 50 Cent after a mother, whose son was murdered, complains that the rapper's music glamorizes gun crimes …
2006, jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk is awarded a posthumous Special Citation by The Pulitzer Prize Board for his contributions to American music … in the face of mounting financial problems, Michael Jackson agrees to sell his 50% share in the Sony/ATV publishing company that holds the rights to hundreds of Beatles songs, as well as material by Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, and others … the catalog is said to be worth $1 billion … just three months after remarrying his former wife Kim in January 2006, Eminem sues for divorce again … a 10-page notebook that 10-year-old John Lennon used to scribble poems, journal entries, and drawings is auctioned for $226,150 … among the art is an illustration of Lewis Carroll's poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter" that later served as inspiration for "I Am the Walrus" …
2007, singer Bryan Ferry apologizes for remarks he made in which he praised the Nazis' iconography as "just amazing" and "really beautiful" … speaking to German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, he had described the infamous Nazi parades as "just amazing" and also revealed his studio is named "Fuhrerbunker," after Adolf Hitler's HQ … said the Roxy Music icon, "My dear gentlemen, the Nazis knew how to put themselves in the limelight and present themselves."… "Leni Riefenstahl's movies and Albert Speer's buildings and the mass parades and the flags—just amazing. Really beautiful." … the comments enrage Nick Viner, chief executive of London's Jewish Community Centre, who says Ferry has left "a bad taste in the mouth." … going on to say: "Riefenstahl was responsible for sending people to their deaths. There is a fine line between people going about their business and people colluding in truly terrible behavior." … free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman wins the Music Pulitzer for his Sound Grammar album, and John Coltrane is awarded a Pulitzer Special Citation "for his masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship, and iconic centrality to the history of jazz" … Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer announce that they are reforming their satiric heavy-metal act, the subject of the cult favorite mockumentary This is Spinal Tap … the band plays the Live Earth festival in London as a part of a worldwide effort to combat global warming …
2008, after a 17-year hiatus, Perry Farrell, Dave Navarro, and bassist Eric Avery, who in the past has declined to be involved in Jane's Addiction reunions, treat fans to an intimate four-song set in Los Angeles … to help faltering indy record dealers, Metallica, Björk, Vampire Weekend, and many other acts perform and sign autographs at 700 participating stores across the U.S. … according to industry analysts at The Almighty Institute, 190 record stores have shut down in the U.S. during the past year, part of 1,500 closings since 2003 …
…and that was the week that was.
Arrivals:
April 15: blues singer Bessie Smith (1894), songwriter Eden Ahbez, who penned the Nat "King" Cole hit, "Nature Boy" (1908), biographer Albert Goldman, who slagged Elvis and Lennon (1927), country music artist Roy Clark (1932), Led Zeppelin manager and former wrestler, Peter Grant (1934), songwriter-music publisher David Mook (1936), '50s rockabilly artist Bob Luman (1937), Clarence G. Satchell, horn player with The Ohio Players (1940), Allan Clarke of The Hollies (1942), singer-guitarist-producer Dave Edmunds (1944), Marc Conners, singer with The Nylons (1949), '80s dance-pop singer Samantha Fox (1966), Ed O'Brien of Radiohead (1968)
April 16: Grammy-winning jazz and film composer, Henry Mancini (1924), sax player and bandleader of Bill Haley's Comets, Rudy Pompilli (1924), pop singer Roy Hamilton (1929), jazz flutist Herbie Mann, born Herbert Jay Solomon (1930), Delta slide guitarist Johnny Littlejohn (1931), pop crooner Bobby Vinton (1935), singer Dusty Springfield, born Mary Elizabeth Catherine Bernadette O'Brien (1939), fingerstyle guitarist Stefan Grossman (1945), singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty (1947), singer Jimmy Osmond, the youngest of The Osmond Family (1963), Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum (1964), Tejano pop star Selena (1971)
April 17: British pop singer Billy Fury (1941), composer-keyboardist Jan Hammer (1948), Ron Asheton, guitarist for The Stooges (1948), guitarist-songwriter-producer Michael Sembello (1954), The Buzzcocks' Pete Shelley (1955), Stephen Singleton of ABC (1959), James Keenan of Tool (1964), singer-songwriter Liz Phair (1967), Opeth guitarist-vocalist Mikael Akerfeldt (1974)
April 18: conductor Leopold Stokowski (1882), opera singer Sylvia Fisher (1910), bluesman Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown (1924), Doors producer Paul Rothchild (1935), Mike Vickers of Manfred Mann (1941), Skip Spence of Jefferson Airplane, co-founder of Moby Grape (1946), Les Pattinson of Echo & The Bunnymen (1958), Jim Ellison, lead singer-guitarist with Material Issue (1964), Happy Mondays dancer and maracas player Bez, born Mark Berry (1964), Everclear's Greg Eklund (1970), guitarist Mark Tremonti of Creed (1974)
April 19: Augustus Juilliard, founder of The Juilliard School (1836), Brit blues pioneer Alexis Korner of Blues Incorporated (1928), rock promoter Don Kirshner (1934), pop songwriter Bobby Russell (1940), Alan Price of the Animals (1942), funk keyboardist Bernie Worrell of Parliament and Funkadelic (1944), Mark "Flo" Volman of The Turtles and Frank Zappa's Flo & Eddie (1947)
April 20: country/pop singer-songwriter Johnny Tillotson (1939), Craig Frost of Grand Funk Railroad (1948), R&B singer Luther Vandross (1951), Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater (1967), bassist Mikey Welsh of Weezer (1971)
April 21: Eric Maresca, writer of Dion's hit "The Wanderer" (1939), punk rocker Iggy Pop, born James Jewel Osterburg (1947), guitarist Alan Warner of The Foundations (1947), guitarist John Weider of Family (1947), Robert Smith of The Cure (1959), Michael Timmins of Cowboy Junkies (1959), guitarist-songwriter Johnny McElhone of the band Texas (1963)
Departures:
April 15: Kelly Johnson, guitarist-vocalist for Girlschool (2007), singer John Fred Gourrier of "Judy in Disguise" fame (2005), Canadian rockabilly artist Ray Condo (2004), punk rock guitarist Joey Ramone (2001), country singer Rose Maddox (1998), Bobby Del Din, first tenor with The Earls (1992), music-industry mogul George Goldner (1970)
April 16: Alexander "Skip" Spence of Jefferson Airplane, co-founder of Moby Grape (1999), soul singer Brook Benton (1988), singer Eugene Church of The Clovers (1973)
April 17: James B. Davis, founder of The Dixie Hummingbirds (2007), New Orleans singer-guitarist-songwriter Earl King (2003), Linda McCartney (1998), lyricist Jack Yellen (1991), Mountain bassist Felix Pappalardi (1983), Vinnie Taylor of Sha Na Na (1974), rock-and-roll pioneer Eddie Cochran (1960)
April 18: Bernard Edwards, producer and founder of Chic (1996), songwriter-producer Mike Leander (1996), Milton Brown, leading figure in western swing (1936)
April 19: American Head Charge guitarist Bryan Ottoson (2005), jazz bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen (2005), Kansas City blues guitarist Larry Davis (1994), session sax player Steve Douglas (1993), 1950s R&B singer-pianist Willie Mabon (1985), big band singer Savannah Churchill (1974)
April 20: jazz pianist Andrew Hill (2007), pop singer Alan Dale (2002), conductor-composer Giuseppe Sinopoli (2001), producer Jose L. Rodriguez, who worked with Culture Club, Mary J. Blige, and Gloria Gaynor (1996), vocalist-guitarist Steve Marriott of Small Faces and Humble Pie (1991)
April 21: soul singer-songwriter Al Wilson (2008), singer-songwriter-pianist-arranger Nina Simone (2003), George Lanuis, lead singer of The Crescendos (1996), singer-songwriter Sandy Denny of Fairport Convention (1978), ska trombonist Don Drummond (1971), Chicago slide guitarist Earl Hooker (1970)
April 15, 2010
Yogi Bore … NY Waxes Roth … Actionable Jackson …
This is the week that was in matters musical…
1941, jazz musician Sidney Bechet records two saxophone parts, clarinet, bass, piano, and drums on a recording of "The Sheik of Araby" … the multitrack performance is achieved in the days before audio tape … Bechet records his first instrument on a wax disc, then plays his second instrumental part while the first disc is replayed … both parts are recorded onto a second disc … each successive part required recording onto a new disc … the result is a master disc with the original instrumental track six generations down and barely audible …
1956, following Elvis' show at the Memorial Coliseum in Corpus Christi, Texas, the venue's manager vows that'll be the last rock 'n' roll show to besmirch his stage … he is reacting to complaints from fans and parents who condemn the performance as "vulgar" … Buddy Holly's first single, "Blue Days, Black Nights," is released …
1959, the first Flying Vs are shipped to dealers from Gibson's factory in Kalamazoo … initially, the radical design doesn't fly with the guitar-buying public and retailers … however, proving Gibson is ahead of its time, the Flying V eventually becomes an icon of heavy metal …
1960, Elvis Presley boards a train this day from Memphis to Los Angeles to begin filming a movie … he is taking the train because he has developed a fear of flying … or because if it happens, he wants to be the first big star to die in a train wreck … of course that honor will be taken by Eddie Murphy in The Adventures of Pluto Nash … perhaps it's no coincidence that Elvis is Murphy's favorite singer …
1961, a raucous quartet of rockers makes its debut at Liverpool's Cavern Club … it'll be another three years before The Beatles become a household name … also on the bill are The Swinging Blue Jeans who will later score a hit with "Hippy Hippy Shake" …
1966, The Lovin' Spoonful perform at the Marquee in London … John Lennon and George Harrison attend … while at the show George meets Eric Clapton for the second time and a lifelong friendship ensues …
1968, John Lennon and George Harrison, along with their wives, leave Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's Indian ashram two weeks before their studies were due to be completed … Paul and Ringo had already split … word later leaks that the Fab Four had grown disenchanted with the spiritual advisor …
1969, Desmond Dekker & The Aces move into the #1 spot on the U.K. singles chart with "The Israelites" … it's the first Jamaican act to enjoy that role …
1970, The New York Times reports that Catholic and Protestant youth groups have adopted The Beatles' Yellow Submarine as a religious symbol …
1971, Carly Simon charts for the first time with "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" … it's the first of 23 hits she will have …
1972, Electric Light Orchestra plays live for the first time at the Greyhound Club in Surrey, England …
1978, four days after collapsing at a friend's house, British folk rock pioneer Sandy Denny dies at the Atkinson Morley Hospital in Wimbledon, London … her death is ruled to be the result of a traumatic mid-brain hemorrhage … Denny is considered a founder of the British folk rock movement and perhaps its most important female singer and personality … she is also noted for her duet with Robert Plant on Led Zeppelin's fourth album in 1971, on the song "The Battle of Evermore" … she is the only guest vocalist ever to appear on a Led Zeppelin album …
1979, lighting director Billy Duffy is killed at a Kate Bush concert when he falls 20 feet through an open trap door onstage …
1980, Bob Marley and The Wailers play in Salisbury, Zimbabwe, for Independence Day festivities … the first five spots in the country chart are occupied by women for the first time ever: they are Crystal Gayle, Dottie West, Debbie Boone, Emmylou Harris, and Tammy Wynette …
1981, Gary U.S. Bonds releases "This Little Girl" … the song was written and co-produced by Bruce Springsteen who had long been a Bonds fan … it will reach number 11 and become Bonds' first chart hit in 19 years … John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas receives a five-year sentence on drug charges … all but 30 days will be suspended and Phillips will embark on a lecture tour warning school kids about the dangers of drugs …
1982, in the latest in a series of wrecks, Billy Joel collides his motorcycle with a car … he is hospitalized and has surgery on a broken wrist … The Clash cancel a tour when guitarist Joe Strummer goes missing … he is eventually tracked down in Paris by a private detective, saying he "wanted a break" …
1989, Roy Orbison's single "You Got It" enters the top ten on the pop charts … it's his first such hit in 24 years … unfortunately he is unable to enjoy his revival having died four months earlier …
1993, Elton John's single "A Simple Life" climbs to #30 on the pop chart … it will ultimately top out at #10 and give the British rocker the distinction of being the only artist to enjoy Top 40 hits for 24 years straight while surpassing Elvis' 23 … police arrest David Lee Roth in New York City for buying a $10 bag of marijuana … Grateful Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann saves a young surfer from a California riptide …
1996, tickets go on sale for the KISS reunion tour … this marks the first time in 15 years that all four original members of the '70s rock group join together in original costumes and face paint … half of Jerry Garcia's ashes are scattered beneath San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge …
1998, Sir Paul loses Linda to cancer … a tornado roars through downtown Nashville, forcing a video shoot for country singer David Kersh to a halt as everyone runs for cover …
1999, Shania Twain is the first woman to be honored as songwriter/artist of the year by the Nashville Songwriters Association International during the 32nd Annual Songwriter Achievement Awards in Nashville …
2001, Peter Buck runs amuck on a Seattle-to-London flight … after quaffing 14 glasses of wine, the R.E.M guitarist overturns a food cart, mistakes a stranger for his wife, smashes crockery, and tussles with crew members … in the ensuing British trial, Buck testifies that he has no memory of the events saying, "All I know is, I woke up and I am covered in cream." …
2004, Michael Jackson is indicted by the grand jury of the county of Santa Barbara, CA, on charges of child molestation …
2005, rapper DMX, aka Earl Simmons, is arrested following an accident on a Bronx expressway that injured three people, including two police officers … giving new meaning to the words rap sheet, his non-musical activities include multiple arrests for drug possession, animal cruelty, unlicensed driving, reckless driving, and identity falsification, plus, he's expanded his repertoire with criminal impersonation, criminal possession of a weapon, criminal mischief, menacing, driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol while claiming to be a federal agent and attempting to carjack a vehicle, theft, aggravated assault, and violating parole … hip-hop star Jay-Z introduces a line of watches including a limited-edition model that will go for $70,000 a pop … the bling is the thing wherein Jay-Z will catch the wallet of the king … Reebok pulls a TV ad featuring 50 Cent after a mother, whose son was murdered, complains that the rapper's music glamorizes gun crimes …
2006, jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk is awarded a posthumous Special Citation by The Pulitzer Prize Board for his contributions to American music … in the face of mounting financial problems, Michael Jackson agrees to sell his 50% share in the Sony/ATV publishing company that holds the rights to hundreds of Beatles songs, as well as material by Bob Dylan, Hank Williams, and others … the catalog is said to be worth $1 billion … just three months after remarrying his former wife Kim in January 2006, Eminem sues for divorce again … a 10-page notebook that 10-year-old John Lennon used to scribble poems, journal entries, and drawings is auctioned for $226,150 … among the art is an illustration of Lewis Carroll's poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter" that later served as inspiration for "I Am the Walrus" …
2007, singer Bryan Ferry apologizes for remarks he made in which he praised the Nazis' iconography as "just amazing" and "really beautiful" … speaking to German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, he had described the infamous Nazi parades as "just amazing" and also revealed his studio is named "Fuhrerbunker," after Adolf Hitler's HQ … said the Roxy Music icon, "My dear gentlemen, the Nazis knew how to put themselves in the limelight and present themselves."… "Leni Riefenstahl's movies and Albert Speer's buildings and the mass parades and the flags—just amazing. Really beautiful." … the comments enrage Nick Viner, chief executive of London's Jewish Community Centre, who says Ferry has left "a bad taste in the mouth." … going on to say: "Riefenstahl was responsible for sending people to their deaths. There is a fine line between people going about their business and people colluding in truly terrible behavior." … free jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman wins the Music Pulitzer for his Sound Grammar album, and John Coltrane is awarded a Pulitzer Special Citation "for his masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship, and iconic centrality to the history of jazz" … Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer announce that they are reforming their satiric heavy-metal act, the subject of the cult favorite mockumentary This is Spinal Tap … the band plays the Live Earth festival in London as a part of a worldwide effort to combat global warming …
2008, after a 17-year hiatus, Perry Farrell, Dave Navarro, and bassist Eric Avery, who in the past has declined to be involved in Jane's Addiction reunions, treat fans to an intimate four-song set in Los Angeles … to help faltering indy record dealers, Metallica, Björk, Vampire Weekend, and many other acts perform and sign autographs at 700 participating stores across the U.S. … according to industry analysts at The Almighty Institute, 190 record stores have shut down in the U.S. during the past year, part of 1,500 closings since 2003 …
…and that was the week that was.
Arrivals:
April 15: blues singer Bessie Smith (1894), songwriter Eden Ahbez, who penned the Nat "King" Cole hit, "Nature Boy" (1908), biographer Albert Goldman, who slagged Elvis and Lennon (1927), country music artist Roy Clark (1932), Led Zeppelin manager and former wrestler, Peter Grant (1934), songwriter-music publisher David Mook (1936), '50s rockabilly artist Bob Luman (1937), Clarence G. Satchell, horn player with The Ohio Players (1940), Allan Clarke of The Hollies (1942), singer-guitarist-producer Dave Edmunds (1944), Marc Conners, singer with The Nylons (1949), '80s dance-pop singer Samantha Fox (1966), Ed O'Brien of Radiohead (1968)
April 16: Grammy-winning jazz and film composer, Henry Mancini (1924), sax player and bandleader of Bill Haley's Comets, Rudy Pompilli (1924), pop singer Roy Hamilton (1929), jazz flutist Herbie Mann, born Herbert Jay Solomon (1930), Delta slide guitarist Johnny Littlejohn (1931), pop crooner Bobby Vinton (1935), singer Dusty Springfield, born Mary Elizabeth Catherine Bernadette O'Brien (1939), fingerstyle guitarist Stefan Grossman (1945), singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty (1947), singer Jimmy Osmond, the youngest of The Osmond Family (1963), Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum (1964), Tejano pop star Selena (1971)
April 17: British pop singer Billy Fury (1941), composer-keyboardist Jan Hammer (1948), Ron Asheton, guitarist for The Stooges (1948), guitarist-songwriter-producer Michael Sembello (1954), The Buzzcocks' Pete Shelley (1955), Stephen Singleton of ABC (1959), James Keenan of Tool (1964), singer-songwriter Liz Phair (1967), Opeth guitarist-vocalist Mikael Akerfeldt (1974)
April 18: conductor Leopold Stokowski (1882), opera singer Sylvia Fisher (1910), bluesman Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown (1924), Doors producer Paul Rothchild (1935), Mike Vickers of Manfred Mann (1941), Skip Spence of Jefferson Airplane, co-founder of Moby Grape (1946), Les Pattinson of Echo & The Bunnymen (1958), Jim Ellison, lead singer-guitarist with Material Issue (1964), Happy Mondays dancer and maracas player Bez, born Mark Berry (1964), Everclear's Greg Eklund (1970), guitarist Mark Tremonti of Creed (1974)
April 19: Augustus Juilliard, founder of The Juilliard School (1836), Brit blues pioneer Alexis Korner of Blues Incorporated (1928), rock promoter Don Kirshner (1934), pop songwriter Bobby Russell (1940), Alan Price of the Animals (1942), funk keyboardist Bernie Worrell of Parliament and Funkadelic (1944), Mark "Flo" Volman of The Turtles and Frank Zappa's Flo & Eddie (1947)
April 20: country/pop singer-songwriter Johnny Tillotson (1939), Craig Frost of Grand Funk Railroad (1948), R&B singer Luther Vandross (1951), Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater (1967), bassist Mikey Welsh of Weezer (1971)
April 21: Eric Maresca, writer of Dion's hit "The Wanderer" (1939), punk rocker Iggy Pop, born James Jewel Osterburg (1947), guitarist Alan Warner of The Foundations (1947), guitarist John Weider of Family (1947), Robert Smith of The Cure (1959), Michael Timmins of Cowboy Junkies (1959), guitarist-songwriter Johnny McElhone of the band Texas (1963)
Departures:
April 15: Kelly Johnson, guitarist-vocalist for Girlschool (2007), singer John Fred Gourrier of "Judy in Disguise" fame (2005), Canadian rockabilly artist Ray Condo (2004), punk rock guitarist Joey Ramone (2001), country singer Rose Maddox (1998), Bobby Del Din, first tenor with The Earls (1992), music-industry mogul George Goldner (1970)
April 16: Alexander "Skip" Spence of Jefferson Airplane, co-founder of Moby Grape (1999), soul singer Brook Benton (1988), singer Eugene Church of The Clovers (1973)
April 17: James B. Davis, founder of The Dixie Hummingbirds (2007), New Orleans singer-guitarist-songwriter Earl King (2003), Linda McCartney (1998), lyricist Jack Yellen (1991), Mountain bassist Felix Pappalardi (1983), Vinnie Taylor of Sha Na Na (1974), rock-and-roll pioneer Eddie Cochran (1960)
April 18: Bernard Edwards, producer and founder of Chic (1996), songwriter-producer Mike Leander (1996), Milton Brown, leading figure in western swing (1936)
April 19: American Head Charge guitarist Bryan Ottoson (2005), jazz bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen (2005), Kansas City blues guitarist Larry Davis (1994), session sax player Steve Douglas (1993), 1950s R&B singer-pianist Willie Mabon (1985), big band singer Savannah Churchill (1974)
April 20: jazz pianist Andrew Hill (2007), pop singer Alan Dale (2002), conductor-composer Giuseppe Sinopoli (2001), producer Jose L. Rodriguez, who worked with Culture Club, Mary J. Blige, and Gloria Gaynor (1996), vocalist-guitarist Steve Marriott of Small Faces and Humble Pie (1991)
April 21: soul singer-songwriter Al Wilson (2008), singer-songwriter-pianist-arranger Nina Simone (2003), George Lanuis, lead singer of The Crescendos (1996), singer-songwriter Sandy Denny of Fairport Convention (1978), ska trombonist Don Drummond (1971), Chicago slide guitarist Earl Hooker (1970)
Week In Review
April 22, 2010
Miles Is Blue … The King Goes Gospel … Sid Vicious Does It His Way …
This is the week that was in matters musical…
1927, bluesman Crying Sam Collins records "Jail House Blues" for Paramount Records in Richmond, Indiana …
1934, Laurens Hammond patents the pipeless organ … he uses a piano keyboard to activate the electronic circuits of devices called tone wheels … by the 1950s, a descendent of Hammond's invention, the famous B-3 organ, weighing about 400 pounds, ensures that Hammond's name is cursed by musicians forced to lug the heavy piece of furniture up staircases to gigs … by then, Hammond, who is tone deaf, had grown to hate the sound of Leslie speakers so much he refuses service to any B-3 owner's organ …
1956, Elvis Presley's first gig in Las Vegas is a bust … the young rock 'n' roller is sent packing after the first week of what was to have been a two-week engagement …
1957, RCA Records signs Harry Belafonte for the unprecedented sum of $1 million … although dubbed the "King of Calypso," the singer is from The Bronx …
1959, the second of two recording sessions for Miles Davis' Kind of Blue takes place at Columbia Records 30th Street Studio in New York City … the group, which includes Cannonball Adderly on alto sax, John Coltrane on tenor, and pianist Bill Evans, records "Flamenco Sketches" and "All Blues" … the album goes on to become a classic, the one jazz album bought by people who normally aren't jazz fans …
1961, Bob Dylan earns $50 playing harmonica for a Harry Belafonte recording session …
1966, British proto-punks The Troggs release "Wild Thing" … the song is later covered to spectacular effect by Jimi Hendrix … and to less-than-spectacular effect by comedian Sam Kinison …
1967, Janis Ian's single "Society's Child" languishes because of its controversial lyrics about an interracial relationship … that changes when conductor Leonard Bernstein features the song on his CBS-TV special about pop music … the record then climbs to #14 on the pop chart …
1969, John Winston Lennon changes his middle name to Ono … a fire claims the ironically named Ash Grove, a Los Angeles folk-blues club … such performers as Ry Cooder, Canned Heat, the Chambers Brothers, and Taj Mahal played their first gigs there … a who's who of blues performers also were regulars … the Melrose Avenue club reopens after a series of benefits …
1970, Fleetwood Mac's founder and leader Peter Green makes his last concert appearance as a member of the group in London … the singer-guitarist will embark on a low-key solo endeavor before being sidelined for a number of years with mental health problems …
1972, Elvis Presley's LP He Touched Me is released … it reaches #79 on the Top 100 album chart … no small feat for a gospel record …
1974, Jim Morrison's widow Pam succumbs to a heroin overdose …
1975, leader and chief songwriter of Badfinger, Pete Ham, who had just quit the band a week earlier and is despondent over his career, hangs himself in the garage/recording studio of his London home three days before his 28th birthday …
1976, it's been more than ten years since Roy Orbison has had a hit when he plays before a crowd of less than 100 at the Van-a-Rama auto show in Cincinnati, Ohio … adding to his misery, it's his birthday … his glory days with the Traveling Willburys lie far ahead … The Ramones release their first album … while Paul McCartney and John Lennon watch in John's Manhattan apartment, SNL creator Lorne Michaels offers The Beatles $3,000 to perform a couple of songs on the show … the two almost hop in a cab to take up the offer but call it off because it's late and they're too tired … customs officers at the Polish-Russian border confiscate a collection of Nazi memorabilia from David Bowie …
1978, Sid Vicious records his rendition of the crooners' staple "My Way" for the Sex Pistols' movie The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle … there is no word from composer Paul Anka on the brutal treatment given his song …
1981, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis play a show in West Germany that's later released on the LP The Survivors …
1984, Jerry Lee Lewis gets hitched for the sixth time to 22-year-old Kerrie McCarver … the marriage will end in 2003 …
1990, Roger Waters' road crew discovers an unexploded WWII-era bomb while erecting the set for his Berlin "The Wall" concert …
1993, Prince announces that he will no longer make records … six weeks later he will change his name to an unpronounceable glyph that turns out to be a modified version of the ancient symbol for soapstone used in alchemy …
1994, former Jefferson Airplane/Starship singer Grace Slick enters a guilty plea to the charge of menacing police officers with a shotgun … the singer explains that she was under stress due to the recent loss of her Mill Valley, California, home in a fire, along with memorabilia that she alleges was stolen by Corte Madera firefighters …
1995, The Beatles score their 70th chart hit on the U.S. Top 100 with "Baby It's You" … the song was recorded 26 years earlier for a live BBC program called Pop Goes The Beatles …
1998, Faith No More announces that it is no more …
1999, Irish singer and hellraiser Sinead O'Connor becomes the first female priest in the Latin Tridentine Church, a breakaway segment of the Roman Catholic church … her priestly name will be Mother Bernadette Mary … in a murder-suicide, Larry Troutman shoots his brother Roger to death in the alley behind their family-owned Dayton, Ohio, studio and then turns the gun on himself … the two musicians along with brothers Lester and Terry had founded a funk band in the mid-1970s that evolved into Zapp … the band scored a series of 1980s dance hits … with their salad days far behind them, the brothers had argued about the direction of the family's struggling business affairs leading up to the shootings …
2000, Eric Clapton reunites with keyboard player Bobby Whitlock of Derek and the Dominos for a BBC appearance … it's the first time the two have worked together in 29 years …
2004, "finding a crash pad" takes on new meaning when Billy Joel plows into a Long Island house while on a pizza run … this is the third wreck in three years for the embarrassed piano man who sends the homeowner a note of apology and flowers … diva Deborah Voigt, who was previously canned by the Royal Opera House for being too fat for a role, makes her recital debut at Carnegie Hall to a rapturous response …
2005, Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas' first solo album becomes the first release available exclusively as a dual-sided audio-video disc to debut at No. 1 … Elton John announces he will marry partner David Furnish … the U.K. legalized civil partnerships the previous December …
2006, CNN.com publishes the results of a reader's poll naming the worst songs of all time … counting down from five to one, they are: 5. "Seasons in the Sun," (Terry Jacks), 4. "I've Never Been to Me," (Charlene), 3. "You Light Up My Life," (Debby Boone), 2. "Muskrat Love," (The Captain and Tennille), and the No. 1 worst song of all time as voted on by CNN.com users is "(You're) Having My Baby" by Paul Anka … The Dave Matthews Band pledges a $1.5 million challenge grant to help build the New Orleans Habitat Musicians' Village, a part of the Gulf Coast's recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina … record labels pressure Apple's iTunes to adopt a variable-pricing scheme for single downloads … the labels are frustrated by their original deal with Apple calling for a flat 99-cents charge per song … they want to charge more for current hits and less for back-catalog tunes … Apple resists the pressure … Jersey Boys, a Broadway musical that's based on Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, is doing great business … other recent rock and pop-based shows about John Lennon, The Beach Boys, and Elvis have not been nearly as well received, closing shop after short runs in the face of a lot of empty seats … in a feverish two-week creative process, Neil Young creates the album Living with War then initially posts it as a free stream online … the album includes the bluntly titled anti-Bush song, "Let's Impeach the President" … rapper Snoop Dogg and his entourage land in the doghouse after a scuffle with British cops at London's Heathrow Airport … the melee occurs when Snoop and his pals are told to vacate a business-class lounge and put up a fight … seven cops are injured in the tussle and Snoop is locked up in a West London jail …
2007, pop singer Avril Lavigne scores her first No. 1 single on the U.S. charts a day after her latest album debuts in the top spot … "Girlfriend" moves up two places to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, fueled by 156,000 digital downloads … her prior best showing was with "Complicated," which peaked at No. 2 in 2002 … her album, The Best Damn Thing, opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with sales of 286,000 units in the week ended April 22 … also this week, John Mellencamp plays a one-hour show at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. … the performer, who has been a critic of the Iraq war in the past, keeps his appearance non-political saying, "I kept my opinions to myself tonight. This was for the people who were there" … Joan Baez, also scheduled to perform, is reportedly banned—no surprise given her long-standing pacifist convictions and repeated refusal to pay that portion of her taxes that goes to the military … as a sign of New Orleans' recovery from Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is held over two successive weekends in late April and May and draws 375,000, nearly 50,000 more than in 2006 …
2008, Roger Waters' closing set at the Coachella Music and Arts Festival climaxes when the two-story inflatable pig sent aloft during the song "Pigs on the Wing" breaks free of its tethers and floats away … the floating pig broke free once before in 1977 at London's Battersea Power Station during a cover shoot for the Pink Floyd album Animals … Coachella organizers offer a $10,000 reward for the missing pig … two days later, pieces of the white spray-painted vinyl pig are found draped over two homes in a gated community in nearby La Quinta … two families split the reward and receive lifetime tickets to Coachella …
2009, Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament is mugged in the parking lot of an Atlanta studio where the band is cutting a record … Ament attempts to flee and is chased by three masked assailants wielding knives who knock him to the ground causing head lacerations … the crooks trash Ament's rented Jeep and make off with over $7,000 in cash and goods …
…and that was the week that was.
Arrivals:
April 22: violinist Yehudi Menuhin (1916), R&B saxman Bull Moose Jackson (1919), jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus (1922), Glen Campbell (1936), producer-songwriter Jack Nitzche (1937), session drummer Howard Wyeth (1944), Frankie Garcia of Cannibal and the Headhunters (1946), Peter Frampton (1950), Paul Carrack of Squeeze (1951), bassist Craig Logan of Bros (1969), Silverchair's Daniel Johns (1979)
April 23: composer Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873), singer-songwriter Roy Orbison (1936), pop singer Ray Peterson (1939), King Crimson violinist David Cross (1949), fusion drummer Narada Michael Walden (1952), Ray Burns, better known as singer-guitarist Captain Sensible of The Damned (1955), Steve Clark of Def Leppard (1960), Stan Frazier of Sugar Ray (1969), rapper Lil Eazy-E (1984)
April 24: Ed Roberts of Ruby and the Romantics (1936), tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson (1937), Barbra Streisand (1942), Richard Sterban of the Oak Ridge Boys (1943), Doug Clifford (1945), Jethro Tull bassist Glen Cornick (1947), Preston Ritter of The Electric Prunes (1949), David J. Haskins of Love and Rockets (1957), Boris Williams of The Cure (1958), Billy Gould of Faith No More (1963), Hole's Patty Schemel (1967), Aaron Comess of Spin Doctors (1968), first American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson (1982), Tyson Ritter, lead singer-bassist with All-American Rejects (1984)
April 25: radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi (1874), R&B sax honker Earl Bostic (1913), Ella Fitzgerald (1918), Chess records session drummer Earl Phillips (1920), electric blues guitar great Albert King (1923), fiddler Vassar Clements (1928), jazz saxophonist Willis "Gator" Jackson (1932), songwriter Jerry Leiber (1933), CCR's Stu Cook (1945), Björn Ulveas of ABBA (1945), Gary "Dream Weaver" Wright (1945), drummer Steve Ferrone of Average White Band (1950), Roger Taylor of Duran Duran (1960), Chris Mars of The Replacements (1961), Erasure's Andy Bell (1964), Eric Avery of Jane's Addiction (1965), T-Boz of TLC (1970), Jose Pasillas of Incubus (1976), Jacob Underwood of O-Town (1980)
April 26: Ma Rainey, "The Mother of the Blues," born Gertrude Melissa Nix Pridgett (1886), blues guitarist Johnny Shines who worked with Robert Johnson (1915), guitarist Duane Eddy (1938), Maurice Williams of the Zodiacs (1938), record producer Giorgio Moroder (1940), pop singer Bobby Rydell, born Robert Ridarelli (1942), Troggs bassist Tony Murray (1945), Eddie Jobson of Curved Air, Roxy Music, King Crimson, and Jethro Tull (1955), Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison (1975)
April 27: countdown DJ Casey Kasem (1932), Main Ingredient's Cuba Gooding Sr. (1944), Badfinger's Pete Ham (1947), soul songstress Ann Peebles (1947), Kate Pierson of The B-52's (1947), Gordon Haskell of King Crimson (1947), Herb Murrell of The Stylistics (1949), KISS guitarist Ace Frehley (1951), pop songstress Sheena Easton (1959), Marco Pirroni of Siouxsie and the Banshees (1959)
April 28: John Wolters of Dr. Hook (1945), Steve Gilpin, lead singer of techno band Mi-Sex (1950), Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth (1953), Roland Gift of Fine Young Cannibals (1961), rapper Too Short, born Todd Shaw (1966), Daisy Berkowitz of Marilyn Manson (1968)
Departures:
April 22: soft rock singer Paul Davis (2008), songwriter Felice Bryant (2003), pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines (1983), bluesman Walter Vinson (1975)
April 23: gospel singer Rev. Timothy Wright (2009), Capricorn Records co-founder Phil Walden (2006), jazz bassist Jimmy Woode (2005), New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders, born John Genzale, Jr. (1991), flamboyant R&B pianist Esquerita (1986), pianist Red Garland (1984), Pete Ham of Badfinger (1975), Motown drummer William "Benny" Benjamin (1969)
April 24: singer Al Hibbler (2001)
April 25: Bobby "Boris" Pickett of "Monster Mash" fame (2007), rockabilly pioneer Hasil Adkins (2005), Roger Troutman and Larry Troutman (1999), R&B singer Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes (2002), Brian McLeod of Chilliwack (1992), saxophonist Dexter Gordon (1990), gospel singer Carolyn Franklin, sister of Aretha (1988), masterful blues pianist Otis Spann (1970)
April 26: avante-garde composer Henry Brant (2008), Daniel McKenna, former guitarist in Toby Beau (2006), Ernest "Snuffy" Stewart of KC and the Sunshine Band (1997)
April 27: master cellist Mstislav Rostropovich (2007), hit-making trumpeter Al Hirt (1999), soul singer Z.Z. Hill, born Arzel Hill (1984), Phil King of Blue öyster Cult (1972)
April 28: Percy Heath, jazz bassist (2005), John Steele, bass singer with The (Five) Willows (1997), progressive country singer B.W. Stevenson, born Louis Charles Stevenson, (1988), T. Rex bass player Steve Currie (1981), Tommy Caldwell, bassist for the Marshall Tucker Band (1980), Charlie Patton, pioneering Delta blues singer (1934)
April 22, 2010
Miles Is Blue … The King Goes Gospel … Sid Vicious Does It His Way …
This is the week that was in matters musical…
1927, bluesman Crying Sam Collins records "Jail House Blues" for Paramount Records in Richmond, Indiana …
1934, Laurens Hammond patents the pipeless organ … he uses a piano keyboard to activate the electronic circuits of devices called tone wheels … by the 1950s, a descendent of Hammond's invention, the famous B-3 organ, weighing about 400 pounds, ensures that Hammond's name is cursed by musicians forced to lug the heavy piece of furniture up staircases to gigs … by then, Hammond, who is tone deaf, had grown to hate the sound of Leslie speakers so much he refuses service to any B-3 owner's organ …
1956, Elvis Presley's first gig in Las Vegas is a bust … the young rock 'n' roller is sent packing after the first week of what was to have been a two-week engagement …
1957, RCA Records signs Harry Belafonte for the unprecedented sum of $1 million … although dubbed the "King of Calypso," the singer is from The Bronx …
1959, the second of two recording sessions for Miles Davis' Kind of Blue takes place at Columbia Records 30th Street Studio in New York City … the group, which includes Cannonball Adderly on alto sax, John Coltrane on tenor, and pianist Bill Evans, records "Flamenco Sketches" and "All Blues" … the album goes on to become a classic, the one jazz album bought by people who normally aren't jazz fans …
1961, Bob Dylan earns $50 playing harmonica for a Harry Belafonte recording session …
1966, British proto-punks The Troggs release "Wild Thing" … the song is later covered to spectacular effect by Jimi Hendrix … and to less-than-spectacular effect by comedian Sam Kinison …
1967, Janis Ian's single "Society's Child" languishes because of its controversial lyrics about an interracial relationship … that changes when conductor Leonard Bernstein features the song on his CBS-TV special about pop music … the record then climbs to #14 on the pop chart …
1969, John Winston Lennon changes his middle name to Ono … a fire claims the ironically named Ash Grove, a Los Angeles folk-blues club … such performers as Ry Cooder, Canned Heat, the Chambers Brothers, and Taj Mahal played their first gigs there … a who's who of blues performers also were regulars … the Melrose Avenue club reopens after a series of benefits …
1970, Fleetwood Mac's founder and leader Peter Green makes his last concert appearance as a member of the group in London … the singer-guitarist will embark on a low-key solo endeavor before being sidelined for a number of years with mental health problems …
1972, Elvis Presley's LP He Touched Me is released … it reaches #79 on the Top 100 album chart … no small feat for a gospel record …
1974, Jim Morrison's widow Pam succumbs to a heroin overdose …
1975, leader and chief songwriter of Badfinger, Pete Ham, who had just quit the band a week earlier and is despondent over his career, hangs himself in the garage/recording studio of his London home three days before his 28th birthday …
1976, it's been more than ten years since Roy Orbison has had a hit when he plays before a crowd of less than 100 at the Van-a-Rama auto show in Cincinnati, Ohio … adding to his misery, it's his birthday … his glory days with the Traveling Willburys lie far ahead … The Ramones release their first album … while Paul McCartney and John Lennon watch in John's Manhattan apartment, SNL creator Lorne Michaels offers The Beatles $3,000 to perform a couple of songs on the show … the two almost hop in a cab to take up the offer but call it off because it's late and they're too tired … customs officers at the Polish-Russian border confiscate a collection of Nazi memorabilia from David Bowie …
1978, Sid Vicious records his rendition of the crooners' staple "My Way" for the Sex Pistols' movie The Great Rock 'N' Roll Swindle … there is no word from composer Paul Anka on the brutal treatment given his song …
1981, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis play a show in West Germany that's later released on the LP The Survivors …
1984, Jerry Lee Lewis gets hitched for the sixth time to 22-year-old Kerrie McCarver … the marriage will end in 2003 …
1990, Roger Waters' road crew discovers an unexploded WWII-era bomb while erecting the set for his Berlin "The Wall" concert …
1993, Prince announces that he will no longer make records … six weeks later he will change his name to an unpronounceable glyph that turns out to be a modified version of the ancient symbol for soapstone used in alchemy …
1994, former Jefferson Airplane/Starship singer Grace Slick enters a guilty plea to the charge of menacing police officers with a shotgun … the singer explains that she was under stress due to the recent loss of her Mill Valley, California, home in a fire, along with memorabilia that she alleges was stolen by Corte Madera firefighters …
1995, The Beatles score their 70th chart hit on the U.S. Top 100 with "Baby It's You" … the song was recorded 26 years earlier for a live BBC program called Pop Goes The Beatles …
1998, Faith No More announces that it is no more …
1999, Irish singer and hellraiser Sinead O'Connor becomes the first female priest in the Latin Tridentine Church, a breakaway segment of the Roman Catholic church … her priestly name will be Mother Bernadette Mary … in a murder-suicide, Larry Troutman shoots his brother Roger to death in the alley behind their family-owned Dayton, Ohio, studio and then turns the gun on himself … the two musicians along with brothers Lester and Terry had founded a funk band in the mid-1970s that evolved into Zapp … the band scored a series of 1980s dance hits … with their salad days far behind them, the brothers had argued about the direction of the family's struggling business affairs leading up to the shootings …
2000, Eric Clapton reunites with keyboard player Bobby Whitlock of Derek and the Dominos for a BBC appearance … it's the first time the two have worked together in 29 years …
2004, "finding a crash pad" takes on new meaning when Billy Joel plows into a Long Island house while on a pizza run … this is the third wreck in three years for the embarrassed piano man who sends the homeowner a note of apology and flowers … diva Deborah Voigt, who was previously canned by the Royal Opera House for being too fat for a role, makes her recital debut at Carnegie Hall to a rapturous response …
2005, Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas' first solo album becomes the first release available exclusively as a dual-sided audio-video disc to debut at No. 1 … Elton John announces he will marry partner David Furnish … the U.K. legalized civil partnerships the previous December …
2006, CNN.com publishes the results of a reader's poll naming the worst songs of all time … counting down from five to one, they are: 5. "Seasons in the Sun," (Terry Jacks), 4. "I've Never Been to Me," (Charlene), 3. "You Light Up My Life," (Debby Boone), 2. "Muskrat Love," (The Captain and Tennille), and the No. 1 worst song of all time as voted on by CNN.com users is "(You're) Having My Baby" by Paul Anka … The Dave Matthews Band pledges a $1.5 million challenge grant to help build the New Orleans Habitat Musicians' Village, a part of the Gulf Coast's recovery efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina … record labels pressure Apple's iTunes to adopt a variable-pricing scheme for single downloads … the labels are frustrated by their original deal with Apple calling for a flat 99-cents charge per song … they want to charge more for current hits and less for back-catalog tunes … Apple resists the pressure … Jersey Boys, a Broadway musical that's based on Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, is doing great business … other recent rock and pop-based shows about John Lennon, The Beach Boys, and Elvis have not been nearly as well received, closing shop after short runs in the face of a lot of empty seats … in a feverish two-week creative process, Neil Young creates the album Living with War then initially posts it as a free stream online … the album includes the bluntly titled anti-Bush song, "Let's Impeach the President" … rapper Snoop Dogg and his entourage land in the doghouse after a scuffle with British cops at London's Heathrow Airport … the melee occurs when Snoop and his pals are told to vacate a business-class lounge and put up a fight … seven cops are injured in the tussle and Snoop is locked up in a West London jail …
2007, pop singer Avril Lavigne scores her first No. 1 single on the U.S. charts a day after her latest album debuts in the top spot … "Girlfriend" moves up two places to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, fueled by 156,000 digital downloads … her prior best showing was with "Complicated," which peaked at No. 2 in 2002 … her album, The Best Damn Thing, opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with sales of 286,000 units in the week ended April 22 … also this week, John Mellencamp plays a one-hour show at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, D.C. … the performer, who has been a critic of the Iraq war in the past, keeps his appearance non-political saying, "I kept my opinions to myself tonight. This was for the people who were there" … Joan Baez, also scheduled to perform, is reportedly banned—no surprise given her long-standing pacifist convictions and repeated refusal to pay that portion of her taxes that goes to the military … as a sign of New Orleans' recovery from Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is held over two successive weekends in late April and May and draws 375,000, nearly 50,000 more than in 2006 …
2008, Roger Waters' closing set at the Coachella Music and Arts Festival climaxes when the two-story inflatable pig sent aloft during the song "Pigs on the Wing" breaks free of its tethers and floats away … the floating pig broke free once before in 1977 at London's Battersea Power Station during a cover shoot for the Pink Floyd album Animals … Coachella organizers offer a $10,000 reward for the missing pig … two days later, pieces of the white spray-painted vinyl pig are found draped over two homes in a gated community in nearby La Quinta … two families split the reward and receive lifetime tickets to Coachella …
2009, Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament is mugged in the parking lot of an Atlanta studio where the band is cutting a record … Ament attempts to flee and is chased by three masked assailants wielding knives who knock him to the ground causing head lacerations … the crooks trash Ament's rented Jeep and make off with over $7,000 in cash and goods …
…and that was the week that was.
Arrivals:
April 22: violinist Yehudi Menuhin (1916), R&B saxman Bull Moose Jackson (1919), jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus (1922), Glen Campbell (1936), producer-songwriter Jack Nitzche (1937), session drummer Howard Wyeth (1944), Frankie Garcia of Cannibal and the Headhunters (1946), Peter Frampton (1950), Paul Carrack of Squeeze (1951), bassist Craig Logan of Bros (1969), Silverchair's Daniel Johns (1979)
April 23: composer Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873), singer-songwriter Roy Orbison (1936), pop singer Ray Peterson (1939), King Crimson violinist David Cross (1949), fusion drummer Narada Michael Walden (1952), Ray Burns, better known as singer-guitarist Captain Sensible of The Damned (1955), Steve Clark of Def Leppard (1960), Stan Frazier of Sugar Ray (1969), rapper Lil Eazy-E (1984)
April 24: Ed Roberts of Ruby and the Romantics (1936), tenor saxophonist Joe Henderson (1937), Barbra Streisand (1942), Richard Sterban of the Oak Ridge Boys (1943), Doug Clifford (1945), Jethro Tull bassist Glen Cornick (1947), Preston Ritter of The Electric Prunes (1949), David J. Haskins of Love and Rockets (1957), Boris Williams of The Cure (1958), Billy Gould of Faith No More (1963), Hole's Patty Schemel (1967), Aaron Comess of Spin Doctors (1968), first American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson (1982), Tyson Ritter, lead singer-bassist with All-American Rejects (1984)
April 25: radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi (1874), R&B sax honker Earl Bostic (1913), Ella Fitzgerald (1918), Chess records session drummer Earl Phillips (1920), electric blues guitar great Albert King (1923), fiddler Vassar Clements (1928), jazz saxophonist Willis "Gator" Jackson (1932), songwriter Jerry Leiber (1933), CCR's Stu Cook (1945), Björn Ulveas of ABBA (1945), Gary "Dream Weaver" Wright (1945), drummer Steve Ferrone of Average White Band (1950), Roger Taylor of Duran Duran (1960), Chris Mars of The Replacements (1961), Erasure's Andy Bell (1964), Eric Avery of Jane's Addiction (1965), T-Boz of TLC (1970), Jose Pasillas of Incubus (1976), Jacob Underwood of O-Town (1980)
April 26: Ma Rainey, "The Mother of the Blues," born Gertrude Melissa Nix Pridgett (1886), blues guitarist Johnny Shines who worked with Robert Johnson (1915), guitarist Duane Eddy (1938), Maurice Williams of the Zodiacs (1938), record producer Giorgio Moroder (1940), pop singer Bobby Rydell, born Robert Ridarelli (1942), Troggs bassist Tony Murray (1945), Eddie Jobson of Curved Air, Roxy Music, King Crimson, and Jethro Tull (1955), Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison (1975)
April 27: countdown DJ Casey Kasem (1932), Main Ingredient's Cuba Gooding Sr. (1944), Badfinger's Pete Ham (1947), soul songstress Ann Peebles (1947), Kate Pierson of The B-52's (1947), Gordon Haskell of King Crimson (1947), Herb Murrell of The Stylistics (1949), KISS guitarist Ace Frehley (1951), pop songstress Sheena Easton (1959), Marco Pirroni of Siouxsie and the Banshees (1959)
April 28: John Wolters of Dr. Hook (1945), Steve Gilpin, lead singer of techno band Mi-Sex (1950), Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth (1953), Roland Gift of Fine Young Cannibals (1961), rapper Too Short, born Todd Shaw (1966), Daisy Berkowitz of Marilyn Manson (1968)
Departures:
April 22: soft rock singer Paul Davis (2008), songwriter Felice Bryant (2003), pianist Earl "Fatha" Hines (1983), bluesman Walter Vinson (1975)
April 23: gospel singer Rev. Timothy Wright (2009), Capricorn Records co-founder Phil Walden (2006), jazz bassist Jimmy Woode (2005), New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders, born John Genzale, Jr. (1991), flamboyant R&B pianist Esquerita (1986), pianist Red Garland (1984), Pete Ham of Badfinger (1975), Motown drummer William "Benny" Benjamin (1969)
April 24: singer Al Hibbler (2001)
April 25: Bobby "Boris" Pickett of "Monster Mash" fame (2007), rockabilly pioneer Hasil Adkins (2005), Roger Troutman and Larry Troutman (1999), R&B singer Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes (2002), Brian McLeod of Chilliwack (1992), saxophonist Dexter Gordon (1990), gospel singer Carolyn Franklin, sister of Aretha (1988), masterful blues pianist Otis Spann (1970)
April 26: avante-garde composer Henry Brant (2008), Daniel McKenna, former guitarist in Toby Beau (2006), Ernest "Snuffy" Stewart of KC and the Sunshine Band (1997)
April 27: master cellist Mstislav Rostropovich (2007), hit-making trumpeter Al Hirt (1999), soul singer Z.Z. Hill, born Arzel Hill (1984), Phil King of Blue öyster Cult (1972)
April 28: Percy Heath, jazz bassist (2005), John Steele, bass singer with The (Five) Willows (1997), progressive country singer B.W. Stevenson, born Louis Charles Stevenson, (1988), T. Rex bass player Steve Currie (1981), Tommy Caldwell, bassist for the Marshall Tucker Band (1980), Charlie Patton, pioneering Delta blues singer (1934)
The Week In Review
April 29, 2010
Orlando Hangs Out … Quincy Moves Quicker … Shondells Pass On A Stupid Gig …
This is the week that was in matters musical…
1891, Tchaikovsky rocks New York City's Music Hall … the Music Hall, later to be known as Carnegie Hall, throws its grand opening with a performance by Tchaikovsky just two days before the composer's 51st birthday …
1937, blues legend John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson cuts his first tracks at the Aurora Studios in Aurora, Illinois, including "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" …
1956, Gene Vincent And The Blue Caps record "Be Bop A Lula" …
1958, the world's first Grammy awards are handed out to Domenico Modugno for "Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu," popularly known as "Volare" (Record of the Year and Song of the Year), the Champs for "Tequila" (Best Rhythm & Blues Performance), and The Kingston Trio for "Tom Dooley" (Best Country & Western Performance) … The Coasters' single "Yakety Yak," featuring a disaffected, back-talkin' teen is released … though six of the group's novelty tunes will land in the Top Ten, this will be their only #1 hit …
1960, Jeannie Black charts with her single "He'll Have to Stay" … it's an answer song in the form of a retort to Jim Reeves' hit "He'll Have to Go" … either way, whether he stays or goes, he's probably going to wind up paying alimony … Cathy Jean & the Roommates cut the single "Please Love Me Forever" that will rise to #12 on the pop chart … but the lead singer and her backup group never share a room, vocal booth, or even meet … the Roommates arrive to do their vocal backing track after Cathy's left the studio … perhaps "Cathy and the Boarders" or "Cathy and the Unwanted Guests" might have been more appropriate names for the pop ensemble …
1961, Tony Orlando makes his TV debut on American Bandstand singing his hit "Halfway to Paradise" with his fly open …
1963, when producer Quincy Jones learns that Phil Spector is planning to cover Lesley Gore's teen-angst single "It's My Party" with a version by the Crystals, he rushes the Gore 45 to stores just two days after cutting the track …
1964, Keith Moon takes the bandstand for the first time with The Detours, who will later rename themselves The Who … 15 years later to the day, Kenney Jones takes over The Who's drum throne after Keith had gone on to trash that big hotel room in the sky … The Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love" enjoys its fifth and final week at the top of the pop chart … Louis Armstrong's "Hello Dolly" will knock it out of that spot a week later …
1968, proto-supergroup Buffalo Springfield, whose lineup includes Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Jim Messina, and Richie Furay, calls it quits … quickly rising from the ashes of The Springfield, Stills goes on to form supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash; Richie Furay becomes the voice of country rock band Poco along with guitarist Jim Messina, who will later join forces with Kenny Loggins; and Neil Young will keep on rockin' in the free world long after the rest have fallen by the wayside …
1969, the savvy agent for Tommy James and the Shondells blows off a chance for the band to play Woodstock, dismissing it as "a stupid gig on a pig farm" …
1972, Warren Beatty brings together 30 artists, including Michelle Phillips, Mama Cass, Judy Collins, Goldie Hawn, and Jack Nicholson for a series of 12 benefits underwriting George McGovern's bid for the presidency … despite their best efforts, the nation reelects Nixon only to have him resign in shame while facing impeachment halfway through his term …
1976, Bruce Springsteen, after playing a gig in Memphis, goes to Graceland where he is arrested by guards when he tries to climb over the fence …
1988, Madonna begins her starring role on Broadway in Speed the Plow … though the title suggests a possible cry for help from the Material Girl in her post-Virgin days, the title actually refers to work; having to plow under and start over again …
1992, The Amercan Nirvana is sued by a British Nirvana over the name, which they claim to have been using since 1968 … the suit is settled amicably for undisclosed terms in the British band's favor and the British Nirvana even go on to record a cover of Kobain's "Lithium" …
1996, Pamela Anderson Lee and Tommy Lee fail to stop Penthouse from publishing stills from a homemade porno flick featuring the famous couple … this despite their claim that the film was stolen from their house … that's right, burglars looking for the big score, when tossing a rock star's mansion for saleable memorabilia, take a cue from sportscasting: "Let's head straight to the videotape" …
2000, Lars Ulrich of Metallica goes to Napster headquarters in San Mateo, California, and presents a list of 300,000 Napsters he claims are using the software to illegally share the group's music … ironic, coming from the band that encouraged its fans to record its music for free in order to climb out of obscurity into the limelight …
2005, Cream comes together after 37 years to perform the first of four sold-out concerts … the two-hour set encompasses all of Cream's biggest hits including "Sunshine of Your Love," "Spoonful," and "White Room" … Bruce Springsteen's new album Devils & Dust debuts at #1 on the Billboard Pop Chart … Audioslave plays a free outdoor concert in Cuba … they're the first non-Cuban rock group to ever do so …
2006, Jersey Boys, a Broadway musical that's based on vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons is doing great business … however, other recent rock- and pop-based shows about John Lennon, The Beach Boys, and Elvis closed shop after short runs in the face of a lot of empty seats … breaking a Guinness world record, 1,572 guitarists gather in the town square of Wroclaw, Poland, to simultaneously play the Jimi Hendrix song, "Hey Joe" … if this doesn't get Joe's attention, nothing will …
2007, a New Jersey company claims Guns N' Roses owes it $107,000 plus interest for handling gear and other services during the band's 2006 tour … a lawsuit is filed against the band, three affiliated companies that handled tour arrangements, and members of the band including singer Axl Rose … rap star Busta Rhymes, or Trevor Smith as he is known to his parents, is arrested on suspicion of drunk driving in New York … police stopped Mr. Rhymes because his car windows are a little too tinted … apparently, so is Busta … officers smell alcohol on the rapper's breath and take him into custody … keeping the rap/DUI connection alive, rapper Eve is charged with a drunk driving accident in Hollywood … the Grammy-winning artist, whose real name is Eve Jihan Jeffers, is arrested on the scene after she crashes her gold Maserati into a center divider … she is freed after posting $30,000 bail … which is probably what it's going to cost her just to get the Maserati's front end straightened out … getting Eve straightened out is another story … friends and relatives gather on what would have been James Brown's 74th birthday to remember the soul singer and question the direction of the music industry … "How did we get from 'Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud' to where we are today?" asks his daughter Deanna Brown Thomas, referring to her father's famous lyrics …
2009, Madison Square Garden hosts a 90th-birthday tribute to folksinger Pete Seeger … an all-star roster turns out to help celebrate the event … guest artists include Dave Matthews, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Morello, John Mellencamp, Warren Haynes, Steve Earle, and Kris Kristofferson … also this week, Cat Stevens accuses Coldplay of plagiarism—again … multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett who split from Wilco in 2001 files a suit against Jeff Tweedy for $50,000 charging breach of contract … the case stems from Bennett's appearance in the 2002 documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart … Bennet will die in his sleep less than a month later …
…and that was the week that was.
Arrivals:
April 29: Duke Ellington (1899), Carl Gardner of The Coasters (1928), Lonnie Donegan (1931), Chicago blues guitarist Otis Rush (1934), Klaus Voorman (1942), Duane Allen of the Oak Ridge Boys (1943), Tammi Terrell (1945), Soft Machine's Hugh Hopper (1945), Tommy James (1947), John Cascella, keyboardist and accordion player with John Mellencamp (1947), Francis Rossi of Status Quo (1949), Mark Kendall of Great White (1958), Carnie Wilson of Wilson Phillips (1968), Master P (1970), Mike Hogan of The Cranberries (1973)
April 30: jazz bassist Percy Heath (1923), country icon Willie Nelson (1933), British solo act and songwriter Jerry Lordan of "Apache" fame (1934), pop singer Bobby Vee (1943), Chris "Choc" Dalyrimple of Soul For Real (1971), J.R. Richards of Dishwalla (1972), Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees (1973)
May 1: pioneering Delta blues singer Charley Patton (1891), big-voiced blues shouter Big Maybelle, born Mabel Louis Smith (1924), the "King of Calypso," Harry Belafonte (1927), innovative blues harp player Little Walter, born Marion Walter Jacobs (1930), songwriter Titus Turner (1933), jazz vocalist and pianist Shirley Horn (1934), singer-songwriter Judy Collins (1939), singer Rita Coolidge (1944), singer-songwriter Mimi Fariña (1945), guitarist-songwriter-producer Ray Parker Jr. (1954), Johnny Colt of the Black Crowes (1966), country singer and actor Tim McGraw (1967), D'Arcy Wretsky-Brown of Smashing Pumpkins (1968), Nick Traina, member of punk bands Link 80 and Knowledge (1978)
May 2: Link Wray, born Frederick Lincoln Wray, Jr., progenitor of the power chord (1929), jazz-blues organist Richard "Groove" Holmes (1931), John Lee "Bunk" Gardner of The Mothers of Invention (1933), Mr. Romance, crooner Zingelbert Bembledack … Tringelbert Wangledack … Yingibert Dambleban … Klingybun Fistelvase … Steviebuns Bottrittrundle … Kringelbert Fishtybuns … Dindlebert Zindledack … Slut Bunwalla … Gerry Dorsey … Wingelbert Humptyback … Zengelbert Bingledack … Engelbert Humperdinck … Vingelbert Wingledanck … no, no, go back one, go back one … "Engelbert Humperdinck," that's it! (1936), Hilton Valentine of The Animals (1943), Goldy McJohn of Steppenwolf (1945), singer-songwriter Lesley Gore (1946), country singer Larry Gatlin (1948), Lou Gramm of Foreigner (1950), Bruce Hall of REO Speedwagon (1953), Prescott Niles of The Knack (1954), Joe Callis of Human League (1955)
May 3: singer and actor Bing Crosby (1903), folk singer Pete Seeger (1919), country singer and truck-drivin' son-of-gun, Dave Dudley, born David Darwin Pedriska (1928), the godfather of soul and the hardest working man in show business, James Brown (1933), Dick Dale, king of the surf guitar (1937), jazz bassist Ron Carter (1937), lead singer of The Four Seasons, Frankie Valli, born Frank Castelluccio (1937), singer-songwriter Nick Ashford of Ashford and Simpson (1942), Welsh folk singer Mary Hopkin of "Those Were the Days" fame (1950), singer-songwriter Christopher Cross (1951)
May 4: drummer Ed "Cass" Cassidy of Spirit (1923), jazz trumpeter and bandleader Maynard Ferguson (1928), soul singer Tyrone Davis (1938), soul singer Johnnie Taylor (1938), Ronnie Bond, member of The Troggs (1942), Peggy Santiglia of The Angels (1944), guitarist George Wadenius of Blood Sweat & Tears (1945), Bill Ward of Black Sabbath (1948), Jackie Jackson of The Jackson Five (1951), country artist Randy Travis (1959), Mike Dirnt of Green Day (1972), Lance Bass of 'N Sync (1979)
May 5: 12-string blues guitarist, Blind Willie McTell, composer of "Statesboro Blues" (1901), soul singer Johnnie Taylor (1937), country singer Tammy Wynette (1942), Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward (1948), Rex Goh, guitarist with Air Supply (1951), acoustic guitarist Martin Simpson (1953), Kevin Mooney of Adam and the Ants (1962), Kevin James LaBrie of Dream Theater (1963)
Departures:
April 29: country singer Vern Gosdin (2009), Albert Hofmann, the man who synthesized LSD (2008), Fabulous Thunderbirds bassist Keith Ferguson (1997), David Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson (1993), Floyd Butler, co-leader of the pop outfit Friends of Distinction (1990), blues great J.B. Lenoir (1967), blues pianist Leroy Carr (1935)
April 30: Zola Taylor, the only female member of The Platters (2007), "The Duchess," Norma-Jean Richardson nee Wofford, touring guitarist with Bo Diddley (2005), Nazareth drummer Darrell Sweet (1999), Body Count drummer Beatmaster V born Victor Ray Wilson (1996), influential bluesman Muddy Waters, born McKinley Morganfield (1983), rock writer Lester Bangs (1982), singer-songwriter Richard Fariña (1966)
May 1: singer Jim Hager of Hager Twins (2008), sax player John Pocisk of Johnny and the Hurricanes (2006), Italian tenor Sergio Franchi (1990), musician-bandleader-satirical arranger Spike Jones (1965)
May 2: jazz drummer Billy Higgins (2001), funk brother and Motown drummer Benny Benjamin (1989)
May 3: Peter Falcaglia, member of Dion's touring band (1995), Helmut Kollen, bassist and guitarist for Triumvirat (1977), Les Harvey, guitarist for rock group Stone The Crows (1972)
May 4: Dudu Zulu, born Dudu Mntowaziwayo Ndlovu, percussionist for Johnny Clegg & Savuka (1992), Chicago blues harp player Paul Butterfield (1984)
May 5: reggae producer and record label owner Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (2004), zydeco pioneer Boozoo Chavis (2001), Ralph Garnone, singer with The Bob Knight Four (1986), singer Clarence Quick of The Del-Vikings (1983), blues and gospel singer-guitarist Reverend Gary Davis (1972)
April 29, 2010
Orlando Hangs Out … Quincy Moves Quicker … Shondells Pass On A Stupid Gig …
This is the week that was in matters musical…
1891, Tchaikovsky rocks New York City's Music Hall … the Music Hall, later to be known as Carnegie Hall, throws its grand opening with a performance by Tchaikovsky just two days before the composer's 51st birthday …
1937, blues legend John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson cuts his first tracks at the Aurora Studios in Aurora, Illinois, including "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" …
1956, Gene Vincent And The Blue Caps record "Be Bop A Lula" …
1958, the world's first Grammy awards are handed out to Domenico Modugno for "Nel Blu Dipinto Di Blu," popularly known as "Volare" (Record of the Year and Song of the Year), the Champs for "Tequila" (Best Rhythm & Blues Performance), and The Kingston Trio for "Tom Dooley" (Best Country & Western Performance) … The Coasters' single "Yakety Yak," featuring a disaffected, back-talkin' teen is released … though six of the group's novelty tunes will land in the Top Ten, this will be their only #1 hit …
1960, Jeannie Black charts with her single "He'll Have to Stay" … it's an answer song in the form of a retort to Jim Reeves' hit "He'll Have to Go" … either way, whether he stays or goes, he's probably going to wind up paying alimony … Cathy Jean & the Roommates cut the single "Please Love Me Forever" that will rise to #12 on the pop chart … but the lead singer and her backup group never share a room, vocal booth, or even meet … the Roommates arrive to do their vocal backing track after Cathy's left the studio … perhaps "Cathy and the Boarders" or "Cathy and the Unwanted Guests" might have been more appropriate names for the pop ensemble …
1961, Tony Orlando makes his TV debut on American Bandstand singing his hit "Halfway to Paradise" with his fly open …
1963, when producer Quincy Jones learns that Phil Spector is planning to cover Lesley Gore's teen-angst single "It's My Party" with a version by the Crystals, he rushes the Gore 45 to stores just two days after cutting the track …
1964, Keith Moon takes the bandstand for the first time with The Detours, who will later rename themselves The Who … 15 years later to the day, Kenney Jones takes over The Who's drum throne after Keith had gone on to trash that big hotel room in the sky … The Beatles' "Can't Buy Me Love" enjoys its fifth and final week at the top of the pop chart … Louis Armstrong's "Hello Dolly" will knock it out of that spot a week later …
1968, proto-supergroup Buffalo Springfield, whose lineup includes Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Jim Messina, and Richie Furay, calls it quits … quickly rising from the ashes of The Springfield, Stills goes on to form supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash; Richie Furay becomes the voice of country rock band Poco along with guitarist Jim Messina, who will later join forces with Kenny Loggins; and Neil Young will keep on rockin' in the free world long after the rest have fallen by the wayside …
1969, the savvy agent for Tommy James and the Shondells blows off a chance for the band to play Woodstock, dismissing it as "a stupid gig on a pig farm" …
1972, Warren Beatty brings together 30 artists, including Michelle Phillips, Mama Cass, Judy Collins, Goldie Hawn, and Jack Nicholson for a series of 12 benefits underwriting George McGovern's bid for the presidency … despite their best efforts, the nation reelects Nixon only to have him resign in shame while facing impeachment halfway through his term …
1976, Bruce Springsteen, after playing a gig in Memphis, goes to Graceland where he is arrested by guards when he tries to climb over the fence …
1988, Madonna begins her starring role on Broadway in Speed the Plow … though the title suggests a possible cry for help from the Material Girl in her post-Virgin days, the title actually refers to work; having to plow under and start over again …
1992, The Amercan Nirvana is sued by a British Nirvana over the name, which they claim to have been using since 1968 … the suit is settled amicably for undisclosed terms in the British band's favor and the British Nirvana even go on to record a cover of Kobain's "Lithium" …
1996, Pamela Anderson Lee and Tommy Lee fail to stop Penthouse from publishing stills from a homemade porno flick featuring the famous couple … this despite their claim that the film was stolen from their house … that's right, burglars looking for the big score, when tossing a rock star's mansion for saleable memorabilia, take a cue from sportscasting: "Let's head straight to the videotape" …
2000, Lars Ulrich of Metallica goes to Napster headquarters in San Mateo, California, and presents a list of 300,000 Napsters he claims are using the software to illegally share the group's music … ironic, coming from the band that encouraged its fans to record its music for free in order to climb out of obscurity into the limelight …
2005, Cream comes together after 37 years to perform the first of four sold-out concerts … the two-hour set encompasses all of Cream's biggest hits including "Sunshine of Your Love," "Spoonful," and "White Room" … Bruce Springsteen's new album Devils & Dust debuts at #1 on the Billboard Pop Chart … Audioslave plays a free outdoor concert in Cuba … they're the first non-Cuban rock group to ever do so …
2006, Jersey Boys, a Broadway musical that's based on vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons is doing great business … however, other recent rock- and pop-based shows about John Lennon, The Beach Boys, and Elvis closed shop after short runs in the face of a lot of empty seats … breaking a Guinness world record, 1,572 guitarists gather in the town square of Wroclaw, Poland, to simultaneously play the Jimi Hendrix song, "Hey Joe" … if this doesn't get Joe's attention, nothing will …
2007, a New Jersey company claims Guns N' Roses owes it $107,000 plus interest for handling gear and other services during the band's 2006 tour … a lawsuit is filed against the band, three affiliated companies that handled tour arrangements, and members of the band including singer Axl Rose … rap star Busta Rhymes, or Trevor Smith as he is known to his parents, is arrested on suspicion of drunk driving in New York … police stopped Mr. Rhymes because his car windows are a little too tinted … apparently, so is Busta … officers smell alcohol on the rapper's breath and take him into custody … keeping the rap/DUI connection alive, rapper Eve is charged with a drunk driving accident in Hollywood … the Grammy-winning artist, whose real name is Eve Jihan Jeffers, is arrested on the scene after she crashes her gold Maserati into a center divider … she is freed after posting $30,000 bail … which is probably what it's going to cost her just to get the Maserati's front end straightened out … getting Eve straightened out is another story … friends and relatives gather on what would have been James Brown's 74th birthday to remember the soul singer and question the direction of the music industry … "How did we get from 'Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud' to where we are today?" asks his daughter Deanna Brown Thomas, referring to her father's famous lyrics …
2009, Madison Square Garden hosts a 90th-birthday tribute to folksinger Pete Seeger … an all-star roster turns out to help celebrate the event … guest artists include Dave Matthews, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Morello, John Mellencamp, Warren Haynes, Steve Earle, and Kris Kristofferson … also this week, Cat Stevens accuses Coldplay of plagiarism—again … multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett who split from Wilco in 2001 files a suit against Jeff Tweedy for $50,000 charging breach of contract … the case stems from Bennett's appearance in the 2002 documentary I Am Trying to Break Your Heart … Bennet will die in his sleep less than a month later …
…and that was the week that was.
Arrivals:
April 29: Duke Ellington (1899), Carl Gardner of The Coasters (1928), Lonnie Donegan (1931), Chicago blues guitarist Otis Rush (1934), Klaus Voorman (1942), Duane Allen of the Oak Ridge Boys (1943), Tammi Terrell (1945), Soft Machine's Hugh Hopper (1945), Tommy James (1947), John Cascella, keyboardist and accordion player with John Mellencamp (1947), Francis Rossi of Status Quo (1949), Mark Kendall of Great White (1958), Carnie Wilson of Wilson Phillips (1968), Master P (1970), Mike Hogan of The Cranberries (1973)
April 30: jazz bassist Percy Heath (1923), country icon Willie Nelson (1933), British solo act and songwriter Jerry Lordan of "Apache" fame (1934), pop singer Bobby Vee (1943), Chris "Choc" Dalyrimple of Soul For Real (1971), J.R. Richards of Dishwalla (1972), Jeff Timmons of 98 Degrees (1973)
May 1: pioneering Delta blues singer Charley Patton (1891), big-voiced blues shouter Big Maybelle, born Mabel Louis Smith (1924), the "King of Calypso," Harry Belafonte (1927), innovative blues harp player Little Walter, born Marion Walter Jacobs (1930), songwriter Titus Turner (1933), jazz vocalist and pianist Shirley Horn (1934), singer-songwriter Judy Collins (1939), singer Rita Coolidge (1944), singer-songwriter Mimi Fariña (1945), guitarist-songwriter-producer Ray Parker Jr. (1954), Johnny Colt of the Black Crowes (1966), country singer and actor Tim McGraw (1967), D'Arcy Wretsky-Brown of Smashing Pumpkins (1968), Nick Traina, member of punk bands Link 80 and Knowledge (1978)
May 2: Link Wray, born Frederick Lincoln Wray, Jr., progenitor of the power chord (1929), jazz-blues organist Richard "Groove" Holmes (1931), John Lee "Bunk" Gardner of The Mothers of Invention (1933), Mr. Romance, crooner Zingelbert Bembledack … Tringelbert Wangledack … Yingibert Dambleban … Klingybun Fistelvase … Steviebuns Bottrittrundle … Kringelbert Fishtybuns … Dindlebert Zindledack … Slut Bunwalla … Gerry Dorsey … Wingelbert Humptyback … Zengelbert Bingledack … Engelbert Humperdinck … Vingelbert Wingledanck … no, no, go back one, go back one … "Engelbert Humperdinck," that's it! (1936), Hilton Valentine of The Animals (1943), Goldy McJohn of Steppenwolf (1945), singer-songwriter Lesley Gore (1946), country singer Larry Gatlin (1948), Lou Gramm of Foreigner (1950), Bruce Hall of REO Speedwagon (1953), Prescott Niles of The Knack (1954), Joe Callis of Human League (1955)
May 3: singer and actor Bing Crosby (1903), folk singer Pete Seeger (1919), country singer and truck-drivin' son-of-gun, Dave Dudley, born David Darwin Pedriska (1928), the godfather of soul and the hardest working man in show business, James Brown (1933), Dick Dale, king of the surf guitar (1937), jazz bassist Ron Carter (1937), lead singer of The Four Seasons, Frankie Valli, born Frank Castelluccio (1937), singer-songwriter Nick Ashford of Ashford and Simpson (1942), Welsh folk singer Mary Hopkin of "Those Were the Days" fame (1950), singer-songwriter Christopher Cross (1951)
May 4: drummer Ed "Cass" Cassidy of Spirit (1923), jazz trumpeter and bandleader Maynard Ferguson (1928), soul singer Tyrone Davis (1938), soul singer Johnnie Taylor (1938), Ronnie Bond, member of The Troggs (1942), Peggy Santiglia of The Angels (1944), guitarist George Wadenius of Blood Sweat & Tears (1945), Bill Ward of Black Sabbath (1948), Jackie Jackson of The Jackson Five (1951), country artist Randy Travis (1959), Mike Dirnt of Green Day (1972), Lance Bass of 'N Sync (1979)
May 5: 12-string blues guitarist, Blind Willie McTell, composer of "Statesboro Blues" (1901), soul singer Johnnie Taylor (1937), country singer Tammy Wynette (1942), Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward (1948), Rex Goh, guitarist with Air Supply (1951), acoustic guitarist Martin Simpson (1953), Kevin Mooney of Adam and the Ants (1962), Kevin James LaBrie of Dream Theater (1963)
Departures:
April 29: country singer Vern Gosdin (2009), Albert Hofmann, the man who synthesized LSD (2008), Fabulous Thunderbirds bassist Keith Ferguson (1997), David Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson (1993), Floyd Butler, co-leader of the pop outfit Friends of Distinction (1990), blues great J.B. Lenoir (1967), blues pianist Leroy Carr (1935)
April 30: Zola Taylor, the only female member of The Platters (2007), "The Duchess," Norma-Jean Richardson nee Wofford, touring guitarist with Bo Diddley (2005), Nazareth drummer Darrell Sweet (1999), Body Count drummer Beatmaster V born Victor Ray Wilson (1996), influential bluesman Muddy Waters, born McKinley Morganfield (1983), rock writer Lester Bangs (1982), singer-songwriter Richard Fariña (1966)
May 1: singer Jim Hager of Hager Twins (2008), sax player John Pocisk of Johnny and the Hurricanes (2006), Italian tenor Sergio Franchi (1990), musician-bandleader-satirical arranger Spike Jones (1965)
May 2: jazz drummer Billy Higgins (2001), funk brother and Motown drummer Benny Benjamin (1989)
May 3: Peter Falcaglia, member of Dion's touring band (1995), Helmut Kollen, bassist and guitarist for Triumvirat (1977), Les Harvey, guitarist for rock group Stone The Crows (1972)
May 4: Dudu Zulu, born Dudu Mntowaziwayo Ndlovu, percussionist for Johnny Clegg & Savuka (1992), Chicago blues harp player Paul Butterfield (1984)
May 5: reggae producer and record label owner Clement "Coxsone" Dodd (2004), zydeco pioneer Boozoo Chavis (2001), Ralph Garnone, singer with The Bob Knight Four (1986), singer Clarence Quick of The Del-Vikings (1983), blues and gospel singer-guitarist Reverend Gary Davis (1972)