• 1885 ~ Joseph “King” Oliver, American jazz cornetist and bandleader
• 1887 ~ Paul Wittgenstein, an Austrian concert pianist notable for commissioning new piano concerti for the left hand alone, following the amputation of his right arm during the First World War. He devised novel techniques, including pedal and hand-movement combinations, that allowed him to play chords previously regarded as impossible for a five-fingered pianist.
• 1888 ~ Irving Berlin, Russian-born American songwriter and lyricist
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• 1894 ~ Martha Graham, Modern dancer: Denishawn dance school and performing troupe, Graham company, established school of modern dance at Bennington College; choreographer
• 1895 ~ William Grant Still, American composer
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• 1916 ~ Max Reger, German composer, pianist and professor (Leipzig Univ), died at the age of 43
• 1927 ~ The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was founded; although the first Oscars were not presented for several years after its founding.
• 1931 ~ Dick Garcia, Guitarist
• 1941 ~ Eric Burdon, Singer with The Animals
• 1943 ~ Les (John) Chadwick, Bass with Gerry & The Pacemakers
• 1965 ~ Liza Minnelli opened in Flora the Red Menace. The musical ran for only 87 performances at the Alvin Theatre.
• 1970 ~ The Chairmen of the Board received a gold record for the hit, Give Me Just a Little More Time. The Detroit group recorded three other songs in 1970, with moderate success.
• 1979 ~ Lester Flatt passed away. He was a bluegrass guitarist and mandolinist, best known for his collaboration with banjo picker Earl Scruggs in The Foggy Mountain Boys.
• 2000 ~ Zydeco trumpeter Warren Ceasar, who recorded three solo albums and performed with the legendary Clifton Chenier, died of a brain aneurysm. He was 48. Ceasar, who was born and raised in Basile, was the nephew of the late internationally known fiddler, Canray Fontenot. In addition to his role as frontman for Warren Ceasar and the Zydeco Snap Band, Ceasar also played with Clifton Chenier, who is known as “The Grandfather of Zydeco.” Ceasar also performed with soul greats Isaac Hayes and Al Green.
• 2011 ~ [Eugene Edward] Snooky Young, American jazz trumpeter who mastered the plunger mute, died at the age of 92
• 2018 ~ Scott Hutchinson, Scottish musician (Frightened Rabbit), died at the age of 36
• 1660 ~ Alessandro Scarlatti, Italian composer
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• 1895 ~ Lorenz Hart, American lyricist and librettist
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• 1901 ~ Bing Crosby, American actor and singer of popular music
• 1924 ~ Theodore Bikel, Entertainer, singer, actor
• 1938 ~ Ella Fitzgerald recorded one of her biggest hits, A-Tisket, A-Tasket, with Chick Webb’s band. Following Webb’s death, Fitzgerald took over the band for some three years.
• 1960 ~ Harry Belafonte presented his second Carnegie Hall concert in New York City.
• 1965 ~ Ed Sullivan had said he would not have this British rock group on his CBS- TV Sunday night show again. This night, however, Ed softened up — and allowed Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones to make a second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
• 1985 ~ Larry Clinton passed away. He was a trumpeter who became a prominent American bandleader and arranger.
• 2001 ~ Robert McKinley “Uncle Bob” Douglas, a renowned mountain fiddler who debuted at the Grand Ole Opry at age 100 last year, died of pneumonia. He was 101. He was scheduled to receive the state’s highest arts award, the Governor’s Folklife Heritage Award, on May 15 at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Douglas, a retired steamfitter who never pursued a lucrative commercial career, won the Smithsonian Institution’s national fiddling contest in 1975 and performed at the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville.
• 2003 ~ George Wyle, 87, who wrote the theme song to “Gilligan’s Island,” the Christmas classic “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and more than 400 other songs, died. “The Ballad of Gilligan’s Island,” which he wrote with the show’s creator and producer, Sherwood Schwartz, became one of the most popular television theme songs. The show debuted on CBS in 1964 and ran until 1967, and its reruns have remained popular. The New York native moved to Los Angeles in 1946 to write and conduct music for “The Alan Young Radio Show.” He went on to work as choral director for television shows including “The Dinah Shore Show,” “The Jerry Lewis Show” and “The Andy Williams Show.” He also handled music for specials by magician David Copperfield and Carol Channing and for the People’s Choice Awards presentations.
1879 ~ Sir Thomas Beecham, English conductor. Founded the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1947 and did much to promote the works of Delius, Sibelius and Richard Strauss.
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. 1895 ~ Sir Malcolm Sargent, English conductor, born. He was in charge of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra from 1942 until 1948 and of the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1950 until 1957.
1899 ~ Duke Ellington, American jazz pianist, bandleader and composer
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. 1913 ~ Donald Mills, Singer with The Mills Brothers.
. 1925 ~ Danny Davis (George Nowland), Grammy Award-winning bandleader with Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass. Best Country Instrumental Performance in 1969, Country Music Awards Instrumental Group of the Year 1969 to 1974
. 1936 ~ Zubin Mehta, Indian conductor, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, and violinist
. 1936 ~ April Stevens (Carol Lo Tempio), Singer
. 1943 ~ Duane Allen, Singer with the Oak Ridge Boys
. 1947 ~ Tommy James (Jackson), Singer with Tommy James and The Shondells
. 1949 ~ Francis Rossi, Musician, guitar and singer with Status Quo
. 1958 ~ The Broadway musical “My Fair Lady” opens for its first night in London, with Rex Harrison as Professor Higgins, and Julie Andrews playing Eliza Doolittle. Tickets for the show cost just over £1, the first month is sold out before opening night.
. 1968 ~ Hair made its way from Greenwich Village to Broadway. The show certainly opened eyes. It was the first time that actors appeared nude in a Broadway musical. Hair ran for 1,844 shows on and off Broadway. It was even more successful in its London run later. Big songs from the show: Hair (The Cowsills) and Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The 5th Dimension).
. 1969 ~ Sir Duke, Duke Ellington, celebrated his 70th birthday. He was honored with the presentation of the Medal of Freedom, the U.S. government’s highest civilian honor.
. 2001 ~ Opera diva Rita Nellie Hunter, a powerful soprano celebrated for her fine Wagnerian performances, died at the age of 67. Hunter, originally from Wallasey, England, was best remembered as the quintessential Brunnhilde of Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, which she performed in London, New York, Germany and Sydney. Hunter’s agile voice led her through performances of Verdi’s “Aida,” and “Macbeth,” Puccini’s “Turandot” and Strauss’ challenging “Elektra.” Despite her remarkable voice, Hunter did not reach international stardom. Her physical size, at a time when the opera was seeking slimmer performers, and the fact that she sang roles primarily in English, kept her from achieving global fame. Hunter married tenor John Darnley Thomas in 1960, and after his death in 1994, took over management of his Singing Academy in Sydney.
. 1912 ~ Kathleen Ferrier, British contralto singer, born. Best known for her emotional performances of Gustav Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde” (“Song of the Earth”).
1916 ~ Yehudi Menuhin, American violinist
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. 1921 ~ Candido (Camero), Musician: bongos, congas, tres, bass: over 100 recording credits with famous jazz, Latin and R&B artists
. 1922 ~ Charles Mingus, American jazz double-bass player, pianist, composer and bandleader
. 1922 ~ Lou Stein, pianist (Tonight! America After Dark)
. 1940 ~ The first all-Chinese commercial radio program was broadcast over KSAN radio in San Francisco, CA. Later, KSAN would become a pioneer in playing ‘underground rock’ music.
. 1943 ~ Mel Carter, Singer
. 1950 ~ Peter Frampton, Singer, guitarist
. 1956 ~ Elvis Presley made his Las Vegas debut on this night at the Frontier Hotel. With Heartbreak Hotel at the top of the pop charts, one can imagine the excitement generated by the new ‘King of rock and roll’. Even with a number one hit, Elvis was not yet well-received by the middle-aged audience. Management of the Frontier was so unimpressed, they gave Elvis his walking papers after one week of a two-week engagement.
. 1978 ~ Steve Martin & THE TOOT UNCOMMONS performed KING TUT on Saturday Night Live, popularizing goofy Egyptian dancing. The song, which portrays the pharaoh as his “favorite honky,” went on to sell over 500,000 copies.
Nearly three months after it was featured in the skit, the novelty tune peaked at #17 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Some of the backing musicians on the track, who called themselves the Toot Uncommons, were actually members of The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.
The record, which paid homage to Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen, would go on to sell over a million copies.
The song was also included on Martin’s album A Wild and Crazy Guy.
In the book Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live, authors Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad write that the sketch was one of the most expensive productions the show had attempted up to that point.
Martin had brought the song to the show and asked if he could perform it, not expecting the production that occurred—producer Lorne Michaels put everything behind it.
. 1983 ~ Earl “Fatha” Hines, American jazz pianist and bandleader, died at the age of 79
. 2001 ~ Jazz pianist-composer Isaac Cole, brother of the late singer Nat King Cole who worked on his niece Natalie’s multiple Grammy-winning 1991 album, died of cancer. He was 73. Ike Cole said he may have benefited from being compared with his more famous brother, who died in 1965 of lung cancer at 45, but that he disliked being accused of “trying to live off the name.” Ike Cole said he decided against changing his name because, shortly before dying, Nat asked him not to. He and brother Freddy toured in 1990 with a show saluting their famous brother. Ike Cole had played the bass drum in an Army band but in 1957, he formed the Ike Cole Trio in Chicago, where he was born, and went on the road. Winning major TV exposure, he soon was booked steadily for Las Vegas shows. His trio also regularly toured Japan, Australia and Europe as well as the United States. Though he often sang a medley of his older brother’s hits, Ike primarily was a jazzman. He played keyboard when Natalie Cole recorded her late father’s songs for a 1991 album that won three Grammys.
. 2013 ~ Richie Havens, American singer-songwriter and guitarist, died from a heart attack at the age of 72
. 1920 ~ Bruno Maderna, Italian-born German conductor and composer
. 1924 ~ Don Cornell (Louis Varlaro), Singer
. 1924 ~ Clara Ward, Gospel singer, Clara Ward Gospel Troupe
. 1931 ~ Carl Belew, Country singer
. 1947 ~ Iggy Pop (James Newell Osterburg), Singer, songwriter, with the Psychedelic Stooges
. 1963 ~ The Beatles and The Rolling Stones met for the first time together, at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond, England. The Stones opened the show.
. 1977 ~ Annie opened on Broadway at the Alvin Theatre. Andrea McArdle was a shining star in the title role. Annie continued on the Great White Way until January 2, 1983.
. 2016 ~ Prince Rogers Nelson died. He was known by the mononym Prince, was an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, and actor. Prince was renowned as an innovator and was widely known for his eclectic work, flamboyant stage presence, and wide vocal range.
. 1925 ~ Tito (Ernest) Puente, Jazz musician, bandleader
. 1925 ~ Henri Renaud, French pianist
. 1931 ~ Louis Armstrong recorded the classic, When It’s Sleepy Time Down South, for Okeh Records. Satchmo would use the tune as his theme song for decades. The song was waxed in Chicago, IL.
. 1934 ~ One of America’s most beloved child stars made her debut. Shirley Temple debuted in Stand Up and Cheer, which opened in New York City. Moviegoers would rave about her song and dance routine, Baby, Take a Bow, for many years.
. 1935 ~ Your Hit Parade, starring Kay Thompson, Charles Carlyle, Gogo DeLys and Johnny Hanser, was first broadcast on radio in 1935. A youngster named Frank Sinatra would later be part of the program as a featured vocalist. Your Hit Parade stayed on the radio airwaves for 24 years. Snooky Lanson would later host the program when it made the transition from radio to TV. Other long-time regulars on the TV version were: Russell Arms, Gisele MacKenzie and Dorothy Collins. They were the lucky ones who got to present the top seven songs each week. Since many songs stayed on the list for weeks on end, these vocalists had to invent new ways to present the hit parade. On April 24, 1959, Your Hit Parade died. The regulars just didn’t fit with the new rock ‘n’ roll hits. Imagine, if you can, Snooky Lanson singing Hound Dog. The original title of the radio show was, Lucky Strike Hit Parade, sponsored by, you guessed it, Lucky Strike cigarettes. The cigarette company continued to sponsor the TV show (those were the days when cigarette companies sponsored lots of TV shows), and the opening theme song was Be Happy, Go Lucky.
. 1943 ~ John Eliot Gardiner, British conductor
. 1945 ~ For the first time on radio, the show “Your Lucky Hit Parade” is broadcast in homes all over the country. It last for nearly 25 years before television led to its downfall in popularity.
. 1950 ~ Peter Frampton, British rock singer and guitarist
. 1951 ~ Luther Vandross, soul singer, (1989 UK No.13 single ‘Never Too Much’, first released 1983, US N0.10 and UK No.2 single with Janet Jackson ‘The Best Things In Life Are Free’). Also worked with David Bowie, Mariah Carey. Vandross died on 1st July 2005 aged 54 two years after suffering a major stroke.
. 1968 ~ Hair opened on Broadway
. 1985 ~ The British pop music group Wham!, featuring George Michael, became the first to release cassettes in the People’s Republic of China. Selections from two of the group’s albums were packaged and sold on the tape.
. 1986 ~ Pianist Vladimir Horowitz gave his first concert in the Soviet Union in 61 years. He had emigrated in 1925.
. 1987 ~ Starlight Express posted the largest week’s gross in Broadway history. The roller-skating musical earned $606,081 at the box office. The revival of The King and I starring Yul Brynner had been the previous leader (1985).
. 2000 ~ Canadian composer Louis Applebaum, long associated with the prestigious classical repertory company the Stratford Festival, died of cancer. He was 82.
. 2001 ~ Giuseppe Sinopoli, Italian conductor, collapsed at the podium while conducting a performance of Verdi’s Aida in Berlin. He was rushed to the hospital, but doctors could not revive him. Sinopoli, 54, was the music director of the Dresden Staatskapelle and was a controversial figure in classical music. An avid scholar, Sinopoli had a medical degree and was also studying archaeology.
. 2003 ~ Nina Simone, whose deep, raspy, forceful voice made her a unique figure in jazz and later helped define the civil rights movement, died. She was 70. Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in 1933 in North Carolina, Simone was the sixth of seven children in a poor family. She began playing the piano at age 4. In the late 1950s Simone recorded her first tracks, including Plain Gold Ring and Don’t Smoke In Bed. But she gained fame in 1959 with her recording of I Loves You Porgy, from the opera “Porgy & Bess.” But she later wove the turbulent times of the 1960s into her music. In 1963, after the church bombing that killed four young black girls in Birmingham, Ala., and the slaying of Medgar Evers, she wrote Mississippi Goddam, and after the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., she recorded Why? The King of Love is Dead. One of her most famous songs was the black pride anthem, To Be Young, Gifted and Black.
Simone enjoyed perhaps her greatest success in the 1960s and 70s, with songs like I Want A Little Sugar in My Bowl, and Four Women, the song with the famous line “they call me PEACHES.” She recorded songs from artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Bee Gees and made them her own. Perhaps one of her more popular covers was her version of House of the Rising Sun. While she had a regal presence onstage, she could often be temperamental. She had a reputation for chewing out audience members who interrupted her performances in clubs with conversation or loud drinking or talking. In 1999 she received a lifetime achievement award in Dublin and an award for excellence in music from the Association of African American Music in Philadelphia.
. 2017 ~ Cuba Gooding Sr., American singer (Everybody Plays the Fool), died at the age of 72
1882 ~ Artur Schnabel, Austrian-born American pianist
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1903 ~ Gregor Piatigorsky, Russian-born American cellist and composer
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. 1930 ~ Chris Barber, Musician, trombone, bandleader
. 1933 ~ Backed by the On the Trail portion of the magnificent Grand Canyon Suite by Ferde Grofe, Johnny Rovetini, pillbox hat and all, uttered the words “Call for Philip Morris” for the first time on the radio. The famous phrase was said in perfect B flat pitch and tone to perfectly match the accompanying music.
. 1934 ~ Don Kirshner, American pop-music entrepreneur
. 1960 ~ American rock star Eddie (Ray Edward) Cochran died in a car crash while on tour with Gene Vincent in Britain.
. 1970 ~ The breakup of the most influential rock group in music history was official when Paul McCartney’s solo LP, McCartney, was released. Paul played all the instruments himself on this Apple album.
. 1971 ~ Joy to the World, by Three Dog Night, made it to the top of the pop music charts on this day. The song was number one for six weeks. Now that’s a hit! 1972 ~Betcha by Golly, Wow, by The Stylistics from Philadelphia, earned a gold record for the group. The Stylistics also scored million sellers with You AreEverything, I’m Stone in Love with You, Break Up to Make Up and You Make Me Feel Brand New.
. 1998 ~ Linda McCartney, photographer and wife of former Beatle Paul, died from cancer.
. 2013 ~ Deanna Durbin [Edna Mae Durbin], Canadian actress and vocalist (Every Sunday, Three Smart Girls, 100 Men & a Girl), died at the age of 91
. 1759 ~ George Frideric Handel, organist, violinist and composer, died. Among his best-known oratorios are “Saul,” “Israel in Egypt” and the “Messiah”.
. 1900 ~ Salvatore Baccaloni, Opera singer
. 1922 ~ Soprano Jeanette Vreeland sang the first radio concert from an airplane as she flew over New York City.
. 1922 ~ Ali Akbar Khan, Indian composer and maestro sarod player
. 1933 ~ Morton Subotnick, American composer of experimental music
. 1935 ~ Loretta Lynn, American country music singer, songwriter and guitarist, first woman to earn the CMA’s Entertainer of the Year award; named ACM Artist of the Decade in 1979
. 1941 ~ Hildegarde recorded the standard Darling Je Vous Aime Beaucoup on Decca Records. Hildegarde was the elegant singer with the long white gloves who was accompanied by the Harry Sosnik Orchestra. It took another 14 years, but Nat ‘King’ Cole turned the song into an even bigger hit, landing at number 7 on the pop music charts.
. 1951 ~ Julian Lloyd Webber, British cellist
. 1958 ~ Pianist Van Cliburn was presented on national TV for the first time on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jack Paar.
. 1958 ~ Laurie London reached the top spot on the music charts with He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, knocking Perry Como’sCatch a Falling Star down a peg or two.
. 1960 ~ The musical Bye Bye Birdie opened at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York City. Chita Rivera and Dick Van Dyke starred in the Broadway show which ran for 607 performances.
. 1967 ~ Herman’s Hermits, featuring lead singer Peter Noone, went gold with the single, There’s a Kind of Hush. It was a two-sided hit, with the flip-side, No Milk Today, also receiving considerable play. Hush, however, was a top five song, while the ‘B’ side just made it into the top 40 at number 35.
. 1995 ~ Burl Ives, Oscar-winning actor and singer whose gentle voice helped popularize American folk music, died. He played powerful dramatic roles in movies including “The Big Country,” for which he won an Academy Award for best-supporting actor, and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”
. 1999 ~ Anthony Newley, British actor and singer-songwriter (Doctor Dolittle; Goldfinger theme; Willy Wonka score), died at the age of 67
. 2007 ~ Don Ho, American musician (b. 1930)
. 2013 ~ Sir Colin Davis, English conductor (NY Met 1967-71), died at the age of 85
. 2015 ~ Percy Sledge, American soul singer (When A Man Loves A Woman), died at the age of 73
. 1985 ~ The long-awaited album, We Are the World, was finally released. Eight rock stars donated previously unreleased material for the LP. Three million copies of the award-winning single of the same name had already been sold. The song, We Are the World, was number five, and moving up, on the Billboard magazine pop single’s chart this day.
. 1991 ~ Martha Graham passed away. She was an American modern dancer and choreographer.
. 2001 ~ Eva Heinitz, who fled Nazi Germany in the prime of her career as a cello performer and was one of the first professional viola da gamba players in modern times, died at the age of 94. Heinitz, a native of Berlin, soared to prominence as a brilliant, temperamental soloist with the greatest orchestras of Europe in her 20s. Initially instructed on the cello, Heinitz taught herself to play the smaller instrument and performed the Bach Passions under the direction of Wilhelm Furtwangler and Otto Klemperer, who called her the world’s best viola da gamba player. Heinitz, who once described herself as “51 percent” Jewish, fled Germany in 1933. She lived in Paris and London, moved to New York in 1939 and was hired by Fritz Reiner as a section cellist with the Pittsburgh Symphony. She came to Seattle in 1948 and was hired as faculty cellist at the University of Washington. During her 28-year tenure, she became one of the founders of the early-music revival, which brought a renewed interest in music and instruments of the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1991, her international colleagues gathered in Indiana and accorded her the title “Grande Dame du Violoncelle” – great lady of the cello.
. 2001 ~ Trinh Cong Son, Vietnam’s most beloved singer-songwriter who opposed the Vietnam War and sought postwar reconciliation, died after a long battle with diabetes at the age of 62. Dubbed the “Bob Dylan of Vietnam” by American folk singer Joan Baez for his anti-war songs, his music is still widely performed in Vietnam and in overseas Vietnamese communities. Son, who was persecuted by the South Vietnamese government in the late 1960s and early ’70s, wrote more than 600 songs. His pacifist songs about the futility of war were banned at the time, but bootleg copies circulated throughout South Vietnam and overseas. When the war ended, most of Son’s family fled overseas but he stayed. He was equally unpopular with the new Communist government for his songs about reconciliation and spent 10 years in forced labor “re-education camps.” But by the late ’80s, he regained popularity, and his songs are still performed by some of Vietnam’s biggest pop artists.
. 2001 ~ Theodore M. “Ted” McCarty, a key figure in the development of the electric guitar and former president of Gibson Guitar Co., died at the age of 91. In his 18 years as president at Gibson, McCarty transformed the Kalamazoo, Mich.-based maker of acoustic musical instruments into the purveyor of guitars to the stars. The solid-body electric guitar was considered something of a gimmick when McCarty left the Wurlitzer Co. to join Gibson in 1948. He had a degree in commercial engineering and had been an engineering designer for the military during World War II. Despite not being musically inclined, McCarty saw possibilities in the electric guitar. At Gibson, he helped bring to life the Les Paul series, named for the blues guitarist who endorsed it, the Explorer series, widely used by both rock and country guitarists, and the radical Flying V. McCarty later bought the Bigsby Co., which manufactures vibratos for guitars. He sold the company and retired in 1999.
. 2015 ~ Cynthia Lennon, the late John Lennon’s wife from 1962-1968, has died at age 75.
Grammy winner
1879 ~ Sir Thomas Beecham, English conductor. Founded the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in 1947 and did much to promote the works of 
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