. 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
. 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
. 1796 ~ The Archers, the first opera composed by Benjamin Carr, an American composer, was performed in New York City.
1819 ~ Franz von Suppé, Austrian composer and conductor
More information about von Suppé
1882 ~ Leopold Stokowski, British-born American conductor
More information about Stokowski
. 1918 ~ Tony Mottola, composer, guitarist: played with Al Caiola, George Hall’s orchestra, CBS radio studio orchestra, worked with Raymond Scott backing up young Frank Sinatra and Perry Como, arranger for Como’s TV variety show
. 1929 ~ Red Nichols and his Five Pennies recorded the Glenn Miller arrangement of Indiana for Brunswick Records. Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa and Jack Teagarden were all part of the recording session that took place in New York City.
. 1936 ~ Ottorino Respighi, Italian composer, died. Best known for his orchestral pieces including the “Pines of Rome.”
More information about Respighi
. 1941 ~ Mike Vickers, Musician: guitar, reeds played with the group Manfred Mann
. 1946 ~ Hayley Mills, Singer, actress
. 1946 ~ Alexander Spence, Musician: guitarist and singer with the group Moby Grape
. 1965 ~ Contralto Marian Anderson ended her 30-year singing career with a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
. 1974 ~ James Brown, the ‘Godfather of Soul’, received a gold record this day for the single, The Payback. Of the 44 hits that Brown would put on the charts over three decades, he received only one other gold record – for Get on the Good Foot – Part 1 in 1972. His biggest pop hits include: I Got You (I Feel Good) at number three in 1965, Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag at number eight in 1965, It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World at number eight in 1966, I Got The Feelin’ at number six in 1968 and Living in America at number four in 1986. This song was featured in the Sylvester Stallone film, Rocky IV.
. 1984 ~ Michael Jackson faced surgery in Los Angeles. Doctors performed scalp surgery to repair the damage done after the megastar’s hair caught fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial on January 27. Jackson was hospitalized and recuperated for months before he could return to work. His single recording of Thriller had been certified platinum in February 1984.
. 1985 ~ The sequined ‘King of Show Business’, Liberace, broke his own record for ticket sales at Radio City Music Hall. Liberace grossed more than $2,000,000 for his engagement in the historic New York City venue. His previous record was set in 1984 ($1.6 million in tickets sold).
. 2001 ~ Billy Mitchell died at the age of 74. He was a saxophonist who played with jazz greats Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie and Woody Herman.
. 1897 Milton J. Cross, American TV announcer. He was best known as the voice of the Metropolitan Opera, hosting its Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts for 43 years, from the time of their inception on December 25, 1931 until his death in 1975.
. 1919 ~ Merce Cunningham, Dancer, choreographer
. 1923 ~ Bennie Green, Trombonist, lyricist
1924 ~ Henry Mancini, American arranger, composer, conductor and pianist
More information about Mancini
. 1939 ~ Dusty Springfield (Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien), Singer, inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 15, 1999
. 1944 ~ Dennis Russell Davies, American conductor
. 1947 ~ Gerry Rafferty, Singer, songwriter
. 1949 ~ Bill Spooner, Musician, guitarist with The Tubes
. 1963 ~ Jimmy Osmond, Singer with The Osmonds, he is the youngest Osmond
. 1973 ~ Former Beatle, Paul McCartney, leading the group, Wings, starred in his first TV special titled, James Paul McCartney. The show featured the new group, including Paul’s wife, Linda on keyboards and backing vocals.
. 1996 ~ Lucille Bremer, American actress and dancer (Meet Me in St. Louis, Ziegfeld Follies), died at the age of 79
. 2001 ~ Walter Stanton, who invented an easily replaceable phonograph stylus that helped create a consumer market for audio equipment, died at the age of 86. Stanton invented the slide-in stylus in the 1940s. The design enabled users to replace a needle assembly by themselves instead of having to send it back to the factory when it wore out. The invention became one of the basics in phonograph cartridge design. He also prodded major manufacturers to arrive at a standard mounting system for cartridges and the type of recording on records, that enabled record players and styluses to be sold separately. He also helped found the Institute of High Fidelity, whose annual trade shows in New York attracted thousands of gadget lovers.
. 1452 ~ Leonardo da Vinci, Italian musician, painter, sculptor, engineer, mathematician, scientist and what-not
. 1651 ~ Domenico Gabrieli, Italian composer and cellist
. 1891 ~ Stephen Albert Emery, American composer and pianist, died at the age of 49
1894 ~ Bessie Smith, American blues, jazz and vaudeville singer
More information about Smith
. 1920 ~ Jim Timmens, Grammy Award-winning composer: Aren’t You Glad You’re You in 1995, Best Recording For Children, jazz musician, musical director of New York’s Radio City Music Hall
. 1923 ~ Dr. Lee DeForest’s Phonofilm, the first sound-on-sound film, motion picture, was demonstrated for a by-invitation-only audience at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City. The guests saw The Gavotte, a man and woman dancing to old-time music and The Serenade, four musicians who played on wind, percussion and string instruments.
. 1927 ~ Serge Koussevitsky directed the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the first performance of Frederick Converse’s symphony, Flivver Ten Million, a salute to the ‘Tin Lizzie’ automobile.
. 1930 ~ Herb Pomeroy, Musician: trumpet, teacher at Berklee in Boston, bandleader, directed radio Malaysia Orchestra
. 1933 ~ Roy Clark, Musician, guitar, banjo, CMA Entertainer of the Year in 1973, country singer, Comedian of the Year in 1970, 1971 and 1972
. 1972 ~ Roberta Flack started a six week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face’. Written in 1957 by political singer/songwriter Ewan MacColl for Peggy Seeger, who was later to become his wife. At the time the couple were lovers, although MacColl was married to someone else. MacColl is the father of singer/songwriter Kirsty MacColl. The song was featured in the Clint Eastwood film ‘Play Misty For Me.’
. 1377 ~ Guillaume de Machaut died. French poet and musician. Composer of monophonic and polyphonic music. Leading representative of the Ars nova tradition
More information about Machaut
. 1816 ~ Sir William Sterndale Bennett, British pianist, conductor and composer
. 1906 ~ Bud (Lawrence) Freeman, Jazz musician, tenor sax
. 1917 ~ Howard Keel, American singer and actor, born as Harold Clifford Leek. He appeared in singing and acting roles in films from 1948-68 and also appeared on TV in “Dallas.”
. 1928 ~ Teddy Charles, Vibraphonist, songwriter
. 1940 ~ Lester Chambers, Singer, musician, played harmonica
. 1941 ~ Margaret Price, British soprano
. 1944 ~ Jack Casady, Musician, KBC Band, Hot Tuna, Jefferson Airplane
. 1946 ~ Al Green, Singer, songwriter
. 1951 ~ Peabo Bryson, Singer
. 1958 ~ Van Cliburn of Kilgore, TX earned first prize in the Soviet Union’s Tchaikovsky International Piano Contest in Moscow.
. 1961 ~ Carnival opened on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre in New York City. Anna Maria Alberghetti starred in the musical which ran for 719 performances.
. 1963 ~ Jack Cassidy and Barbara Cook starred in She Loves Me, which opened at the O’Neill Theatre in New York City. The Broadway musical ran for 189 performances.
. 1980 ~ Broadway’s longest-running musical closed after eight years. Grease ran for 3,388 performances and earned $8 million. Though the longest running musical on the Great White Way at the time, Grease was also the third longest-running Broadway show. Other shows in the top five included: The Defiant Ones and Life with Father, Oh! Calcutta, A Chorus Line and Fiddler on the Roof.
. 1985 ~ The Grand Ole Opry, a radio staple from Nashville for 60 years, came to TV. The Nashville Network presented the country music jamboree to some 22-million homes across the U.S.
. 1819 ~ Sir Charles Halle, German-born British pianist and conductor He settled in Manchester after being driven to England by the 1848 Revolution and in 1858 founded the famous Halle Orchestra.
. 1889 ~ Nick LaRocca, American jazz cornetist and composer (Tiger Rag)
. 1916 ~ Alberto Ginastera, Argentinian composer
. 1932 ~ Joel Grey, Entertainer
. 1938 ~ Kurt Moll, German bass
. 1938 ~ O.C. Cash founded SPEBSQS (The Society for the Preservation of Barbershop-Quartet Singing)
. 1956 ~ Elvis Presley reached the top spot on the Billboard music chart with his first double-sided hit. The disk featured Heartbreak Hotel and I Was theOne. The RCA Victor record stayed at number one for eight weeks. Elvis also made the country and R&B charts, as well.
. 1961 ~ Bob Dylan made his professional singing debut in Greenwich Village’s Gerde’s Folk City. He sang Blowin’ in the Wind.
. 1970 ~ Beatles’ “Let It Be” single went #1 & stayed #1 for 2 weeks
. 2006 ~ June Pointer, American singer (Pointer Sisters) died at the age of 52
. 2017 ~ J. Geils [John Warren Geils Jr], American rock guitarist (J. Geils Band), died at the age of 71
. 1886 ~ Enrique Granados, Spanish pianist and composer, performed his debut piano concert in Barcelona.
. 1888 ~ Sol Hurok, Impresario
1890 ~ Efram Zimbalist, Russian-born American violinist and composer
More information about Zimbalist
. 1898 ~ Paul Robeson, American bass. Known for his sympathy for Russia he had his passport revoked for many years. The song Ole Man River, whose words he changed to fit his views, became his signature song.
. 1906 ~ Antal Dorati, Hungarian-born American conductor and composer. He was the first conductor to record all of Haydn’s symphonies.
. 1932 ~ Carl Perkins, early American rock ‘n’ roll figure who originally recorded Blue Suede Shoes. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987
. 1940 ~ Jimmy Dorsey and his orchestra, along with singer Helen O’Connell, recorded Six Lessons from Madame La Zonga for Decca Records.
. 1950 ~ Bob Hope hosted a Star-Spangled Review on NBC-TV. Hope became the highest- paid performer for a single show on TV. The Star-Spangled Review was a musical special.
. 1970 ~ Paul McCartney sought a High Court writ to wind up the Beatles business partnership, effectively ending the group’s career.
. 1977 ~ The Swedish pop group Abba made its debut at number one on the American pop charts, as Dancing Queen became the most popular record in the U.S.
. 1988 ~ Brook Benton passed away. He was an American singer and songwriter who was popular with rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and pop music audiences.
. 2001 ~ Graziella Sciutti, an Italian soprano and opera director best known for her interpretations of Mozart, died at the age of 68. Born in Turin, northern Italy, in 1932, Sciutti made her first operatic appearance at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France in 1951. She went on to perform under Herbert von Karajan at Milan’s La Scala. She was lead soprano at a smaller theater at La Scala called La Piccola Scala for eight years from its inception in 1955. She became a member of the Vienna State Opera in 1960 and the following year made her debut in San Francisco in one of her most celebrated roles, as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro. She began her directing career at Covent Garden in London and at the Glyndebourne Festival in England, where she directed and performed in Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine in 1977. She then went on to direct in Canada and for the opera companies in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Dallas and Miami, as well as in Britain, Germany and Italy. She joined London’s Royal College of Music in the mid 1980s and continued to teach there until shortly before her death.
. 1692 ~ Giuseppe Tartini, Venetian Baroque composer and violinist (Trillo del Diavolo)
. 1848 ~ Gaetano Donizetti (born in 1797), died in Bergamo. He was an Italian composer.
. 1889 ~ Sir Adrian Boult, British conductor. In 1918 Gustav Holst asked him to conduct the first performance of “The Planets.”
. 1920 ~ Charles Tomlinson Griffes, US composer (White Peacock), died at the age of 35
. 1922 ~ Carmen McRae, US jazz singer/pianist
. 1923 ~ Franco Corelli, Italian tenor, debut: Spoleto (Italy) as Don Jose in Bizet’s Carmen in 1951; in films: Great Moments in Opera, Franco Corelli in Tosca, The Great Tenors – Voice of Firestone Classic Performances
. 1929 ~ Jacques Brel, Belgian-born French singer and songwriter
. 1941 ~ Peggy Lennon, Singer with The Lennon Sisters
. 1950 ~ Vaslav Nijinsky, legendary Russian ballet dancer, died. He is generally regarded as the 20th century’s greatest male dancer.
. 1963 ~ Julian Lennon, Singer, son of John and Cynthia Lennon
. 1968 ~ The Beatles went gold again, receiving a gold record for the single, Lady Madonna.
. 1971 ~ Chicago became the first rock group to play Carnegie Hall in New York City.
. 1986 ~ It took 18 years of singing the U.S. national anthem, but on this day, at long last, baritone Robert Merrill of the Metropolitan Opera became the first person to both sing the anthem and throw out the first ball at Yankee Stadium for the Yanks home opener.
. 2001 ~ Van Stephenson, a hit Nashville songwriter who also earned onstage success as a member of the trio BlackHawk, died after suffering from cancer at the age of 47. Stephenson released two albums as a solo pop artist in the 1980s, and scored the hit Modern Day Delilah in 1984. Moving back to Nashville from Los Angeles, Stephenson partnered with songwriter Dave Robbins to write a string of hits for Restless Heart, Dan Seals, and others. Stephenson and Robbins teamed up with former Outlaws singer Henry Paul at the suggestion of record executive Tim DuBois. The trio has had a string of hits since 1993, including Goodbye Says it All and Down in Flames.
. 2013 ~ Annette Funicello, American singer and actress (Mickey Mouse Club), died from multiple sclerosis complications at the age of 70.
. 1724 ~ Giovanni Jacopo Casanova de Seingalt, Italian violinist During his life he was also a seminarian, a secretary to a cardinal, a Venetian ensign, an abbe, a gambler, an alchemist, a spy, a lover, adventurer, and a librarian.
. 1784 ~ Ludwig Spohr, German violinist, composer and conductor
. 1839 ~ Stanislaw Pilinski, French pianist and composer
. 1869 ~ Albert Roussel, French composer
. 1908 ~ Herbert von Karajan, Austrian conductor
. 1922 ~ Gale Storm (Josephine Cottle), Singer
. 1925 ~ Stan Levey, Musician, composer, drummer in a band with Charlie Parker
. 1928 ~ Tony Williams, Singer with The Platters
. 1932 ~ Billy Bland, Singer
. 1934 ~ Stanley Turrentine, Jazz musician – tenor sax
. 1940 ~ Tommy Cash, Songwriter, Johnny Cash’s brother
. 1946 ~ Vincent Youmans passed away. He was an American Broadway composer and Broadway producer.
. 1958 ~ Johnny Mathis’ album, Johnny’s Greatest Hits, on Columbia Records, made it to the pop music charts for the first time. The LP remained on the charts for a record 490 weeks (nearly 9~1/2 years!) The record began its stay at number one (three weeks) on June 9, 1958. Mathis studied opera from age 13 and earned a track and field scholarship at San Francisco State College. He was invited to Olympic try-outs and chose a singing career instead. He was originally a jazz-style singer when Columbia switched Mathis to singing pop ballads. Johnny would chart over 60 albums in 30 years.
. 1982 ~ After eight years of publication to the radio and recording industry, Record World magazine ceased publication and filed for bankruptcy protection.
. 1985 ~ Broadcasters banded together to play the single, We Are the World, at 10:50 a.m. E.S.T. Stations in the United States were joined by hundreds of others around the world in a sign of unification for the African relief cause. Even Muzak made the song only the second vocal selection it has ever played in elevators and offices since its inception.
1819 ~ Franz von Suppé, Austrian composer and conductor
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