August 18: Today in Music History

today

• 1750 ~ Antonio Salieri, Italian composer and conductor
More information about Salieri

• 1873 ~ Leo Slezak, Austrian tenor

• 1907 ~ Howard Swanson, American composer

• 1916 ~ Moura Lympany, Saltash England, pianist

• 1937 ~ The first FM radio construction permit was issued. It went to W1X0J (later to become WGTR) in Boston, MA. The station went on the air two years later.

• 1939 ~ Johnny Preston, Singer

• 1944 ~ Carl Wayne, Singer with The Move

• 1949 ~ Ralph Flanagan and his orchestra recorded their first tune on wax, You’re Breaking My Heart.

• 1950 ~ Dennis Elliott, Drummer with Foreigner

• 1957 ~ Ron Strykert, Guitarist with Men at Work

• 1958 ~ Perez Prado, the ‘Mambo King’, received one of the first gold records awarded by the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA). The single, Patricia, was certified as having sold over one million copies.

• 1973 ~ Jazz drummer Gene Krupa played for the final time with members of the original Benny Goodman Quartet. Krupa, a jazz and big band legend, died on October 6, 1973.

• 1981 ~ Robert Russell Bennett passed away

• 1981 ~ Rex Harrison brought the award-winning My Fair Lady back to Broadway as he recreated the role of Henry Higgins. The play had originally opened in 1956.

• 2001 ~ Jack Elliott, a composer and conductor who worked on numerous hit television shows and movies, died of a brain tumor. He was 74.
Elliott came to Los Angeles in the early 1960s to work as a musical arranger on Judy Garland’s television show.
He gained a reputation as one of the top composers and arrangers in Hollywood. If a television show was popular in the 1970s, it most likely had the music of Elliott and his frequent collaborator Allyn Ferguson. They worked on such shows as: “Police Story,” “Barney Miller,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “The Love Boat.”
He also worked in films and teamed with director Carl Reiner on several projects, including: “The Comic,” “The Jerk” and “Oh God.”
Elliott served as music director for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, writing the music for the opening and closing ceremonies as well as conducting the orchestra.

• 2003 ~ Tony Jackson, bass player for The Searchers, a Liverpool band best known for the 1964 song “Needles and Pins,” died at the age of 63.
Jackson sang and played bass for The Searchers, a Liverpool band that briefly rivaled The Beatles for popularity in the early 1960s. “Needles and Pins” made the top 20 in the United States after it was released in 1964.
Jackson was lead singer on the band’s first two British hits, “Sweets for My Sweet” and “Sugar and Spice,” but played bass only on the enduring “Needles and Pins” and “Don’t Throw Your Love Away.”
Feeling sidelined, Jackson quit the group in 1964. His follow-up band, Tony Jackson and the Vibrations, failed to score a hit and he drifted out of the music business.

• 2004 ~ Elmer Bernstein, American movie music composer (The Magnificent Seven, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Age Of innocence, Thoroughly Modern Mille), died at the age of 82

How to Get your Kids to the Keyboard!

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Let’s face it. Most kids don’t want to practice the piano. And if they do find the time to practice, it’s usually because their parent kept nagging them. How frustrating!

Piano teachers are frustrated too. It’s nearly impossible to teach students new concepts when they don’t understand the old ones–all because of a lack of practice.

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