• 1910 ~ Dorothy Maynor, American soprano and educator
• 1914 ~ Tom Glazer, American folk singer, composer of a film score
• 1921 ~ Thurston Dart, British musicologist
• 1925 ~ Hank (Henry Williams) Thompson, ‘Crown Prince of Country Music’, singer with The Brazos Valley Boys
• 1933 ~ Tompall (Tom Paul) Glaser, Singer with The Glaser Brothers
• 1940 ~ Artie Shaw and the Gramercy Five recorded Summit Ridge Drive for Victor Records.
• 1942 ~ Al Jardine, Songwriter, singer, musician: bass, guitar with The Beach Boys
• 1942 ~ Frank Sinatra bid adieu to the Tommy Dorsey Band as he started his solo singing career.
• 1944 ~ Gary Leeds, Drummer with The Walker Brothers
• 1945 ~ George Biondo, Musician with Steppenwolf
• 1948 ~ Donald Brewer, Drummer, songwriter with Silver Bullet Band; Flint; Grand Funk Railroad
• 1963 ~ Reprise Records, owned by Frank Sinatra, became part of Warner Brothers Records. The ‘Chairman of the Board’ continued to record for the label.
• 1985 ~ Jo (Jonathan) Jones passed away. He was an American jazz drummer. A bandleader and pioneer in jazz percussion, Jones anchored the Count Basie Orchestra rhythm section from 1934 to 1948.
• 1888 ~ Friedrich Schorr, Hungarian bass-baritone
• 1917 ~ Laurindo Almeida, Grammy Award-winning composer, musician, guitarist
• 1919 ~ Marge Champion (Marjorie Belcher), Dancer, actress, choreographer with Gower Champion, model for animated Snow White
• 1924 ~ Theatregoers heard the song Indian Love Call for the first time in the operetta Rose Marie, which opened in New York City.
• 1927 ~ Sophie Tucker recorded her signature song, Some of These Days, for Columbia Records.
• 1931 ~ The radio show 15 Minutes with Bing Crosby debuted on CBS. The singer became a super-hot property after the debut.
• 1936 ~ David Blaki, British composer
• 1939 ~ Sam Gooden, Singer with Roosters
• 1940 ~ Jimmy Clanton, Singer, songwriter, toured with Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars
• 1943 ~ Rosalind Ashford, Singer with Martha and the Vandellas
• 1946 ~ Marty Grebb, Musician, keyboards with The Buckinghams
• 1957 ~ Steve Porcaro, Keyboards, singer with Toto
• 1958 ~ Fritz McIntyre, Keyboards with Simply Red
• 1965 ~ The Beatles received a gold record for their single Help!, from the movie of the same name.
• 1997 ~ Sir Rudolf Bing died. He was an Austrian-born opera impresario who worked in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, most notably being General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1950 to 1972.
• 2000 ~ Elvera Sanchez Davis, a tap dancer and the mother of Sammy Davis, Jr., died at the age of 95. Known as Baby Sanchez, Davis began performing at 16 in the chorus line at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem. She continued her career into the early 1940s, dancing for six years in the chorus line at the Apollo Theatre. In 1923, performing in a touring show called “Holiday in Dixie”, she met and married Sammy Davis Sr., also a dancer in the show. Their son was born in 1925. He became a tap-dance prodigy by age 10, trained and brought up by his father after his parents separated. Mrs. Davis retired when the Apollo disbanded its dance chorus, though she danced informally into her 90s. She also performed in touring revues and in films including Carl Micheaux’s 1936 “Swing”. Davis continued to be involved with tap dance until her death, serving from 1989 as an adviser to the New York Committee to Celebrate National Tap Dance Day.
Sammy Davis, Jr. died in 1990 at the age of 64.
• 2001 ~ Troy Donahue died at the age of 65. He was a matinee idol who climbed to stardom in the 1950s with his role in “A Summer Place.”
• 2001 ~ Jazz saxophonist Jay Migliori, who worked with musicians and singers ranging from
Frank Zappa to Frank Sinatra, died of colon cancer. He was 70.
Migliori, who was also a founding member of the Grammy-winning jazz group Supersax, played on some 4,000 recordings during his career. Although he described his own style as “modern acoustic jazz with roots in bebop,” he was equally comfortable working with country stars like Glen Campbell, a wide variety of rock musicians including Zappa and the Four Seasons and pop stars as varied as Dean Martin and Celine Dion. He performed with more than two dozen bands over the years, including those led by Miles Davis, Stan Kenton, Terry Gibbs and Maynard Ferguson. In 1971, he joined Supersax, an ensemble built around a five-saxophone section that specialized in orchestrated Charlie Parker solos. He also recorded several albums of his own, including “Jazz in Transition” and “Smile.”
• 2006 ~ [Jean-Josephat] Clermont Pépin, Canadian pianist and composer (Implosion Symphony), died at the age of 80
1653 ~ Johann Pachelbel, German composer and organist
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• 1887 ~ Emile Berliner filed for a patent for his invention of the lateral-cut, flat-disk gramophone. We know it better as the record player. Emile got the patent, but Thomas Edison got the notoriety for making it work and making music with his invention.
1854 ~ Engelbert Humperdinck, German opera composer
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• 1933 ~ Conway Twitty (Harold Lloyd Jenkins), Songwriter, CMA Male Vocalist of the
Year in 1975, Grammy Award-winner with Loretta Lynn, owns booking agency, music publishing company, Twitty Burgers, Twitty City theme park
1935 ~ Seiji Ozawa, Japanese conductor
More information about Ozawa
• 1940 ~ Dave White (Tricker), Singer, songwriter with Danny & The Juniors
• 1944 ~ Leonard Slatkin, Grammy Award-winning orchestra director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra
• 1946 ~ Barry Gibb, Musician, rhythm guitar, songwriter, singer with The Bee Gees
• 1946 ~ Greg Errico, Drummer with Sly and The Family Stone
• 1955 ~ Bruce Foxton, Guitar with 100 Men and The Jam
• 1957 ~ Gloria Estefan (Gloria Maria Milagrosa Fajardo), ‘Queen of Latin Pop’, Grammy Award-winning singer
• 1960 ~ When Oscar Hammerstein II died, the musical theater lost an outstanding composer. To honor the man and his music, every New York theater turned off its lights on this night in 1960.
• 1972 ~ The O’Jays received a gold record for Back Stabbers. It was the first hit for the group from Canton, OH. The O’Jays would place nine more hits on the pop and R&B charts. Five of them were gold record winners: Love Train, I Love Music, Use ta Be My Girl, For the Love of Money and Put Your Hands Together.
• 1977 ~ Singer Debbie Harry (of Blondie) signed a recording deal with Chrysalis Records. Chrysalis bought the group’s private stock label for $500,000. With the high visibility of the former Playboy Bunny, it was difficult to think of Blondie as a band, and not just Debbie Harry.
• 1982 ~ Clifford M Curzon, England, pianist, died at the age of 75
• 2001 ~ Sil Austin, a jazz artist who recorded more than 30 albums and the Top 40 hits Slow Walk, My Mother’s Eyes, and his signature song, Danny Boy, died of prostate cancer. He was 71. Austin taught himself how to play the tenor saxophone when he was 12. Four years later, he played Danny Boy on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, a performance that caught the attention of Mercury Records. Austin performed all over Europe and Asia, usually traveling with his wife, the Rev. Vernice Austin.