• 1874 ~ Charles Ives, American composer
More information on Ives
• 1890 ~ Ferdinand “Jelly Roll” Morton, jazz pianist/composer
• 1913 ~ Grandpa (Louis Marshall) Jones, Country Music Hall of Famer, Grand Ole Opry, singer
• 1914 ~ Fayard Nicholas, American tap dancer, one-half of The Nicholas Brothers and actor (The Five Heartbeats)
• 1923 ~ Robert Craft, American conductor and writer
• 1935 ~ Jerry Orbach, American singer and actor for the musical theater
• 1937 ~ Wanda Jackson, Singer, songwriter
• 1939 ~ Jay Siegel, Singer with The Tokens
• 1939 ~ All the Things You Are was recorded by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra on the Victor label. Jack Leonard was the featured vocalist.
• 1945 ~ Ric Lee, Drummer with Ten Years After
• 1950 ~ Tom Petty, Singer with The Traveling Wilburys
• 1951 ~ Al Greenwood, Keyboards with Foreigner
• 1955 ~ “Day-O. Day-ay-ay-ay-o!” One of the most popular of the Harry Belafonte hits was recorded for RCA Victor. Day-O didn’t make it to the pop charts for over a year, until January of 1957, after its name had been changed to The Banana Boat Song (Day-O).
• 1958 ~ Mark King, Bass, singer with Level 42
• 1958 ~ Ivo Pogorelić, Croatian pianist (1978 Casagrande winner)
• 1962 ~ With Halloween just around the corner, we remember that Bobby “Boris” Picket and the Crypt Kickers reached the top of the charts this day (for two weeks) with The Monster Mash. And someone, somewhere, has resurrected it every Halloween since.
This piece is now in Piano Maestro in the Halloween section and there is sheet music, if you are interested.
• 1962 ~ The musical, Mr. President, written by Irving Berlin, opened on Broadway. Mr. President ran for 265 performances.
• 1965 ~ The Beatles received a gold record for the single, Yesterday. This song marked the first time a cello was used in a pop hit.
• 2000 ~ Li Yundi, an 18-year-old virtuoso from China, has won Poland’s Frederic Chopin piano competition, becoming one of the youngest players to capture the prestigious international prize. Read the whole story
• 1935 ~ Victor record #25236 was recorded by Tommy Dorsey and orchestra. It would become one of the most familiar big band themes of all time, I’m Getting Sentimental Over You.
• 1943 ~ Russ Giguere, Guitarist, singer with The Association
• 1947 ~ Laura Nyro, Singer
• 1952 ~ Keith Knudsen, Drummer singer with The Doobie Brothers
• 1979 ~ Following extensive renovation to return Radio City Music Hall to the look and feel of its 1931 art deco glory, the venerable New York City theatre reopened. “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” was the first live presentation.
• 1983 ~ Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton received a gold record to add to their collections for their smash, Islands in the Stream.
• 2000 ~ Julie London, American singer and actress (Nurse McCall-Emergency), died at the age of 74
• 2000 ~ Gwyneth “Gwen” Verdon, American actress, singer and dancer (Cotton Club, Sweet Charity), died at the age of 75
• 2006 ~ Anna Russell, English music satirist and composer, died at the age of 94
• 1849 ~ Frederic Chopin died at the age of 39. Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era, one whose “poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation.
• 1938 ~ This was a big day in Tinseltown. NBC moved to the corner of Sunset and Vine, the ‘Crossroads of the World’. The new Hollywood Radio City drew thousands of visitors ready to fill studio-audience seats for popular radio programs.
• 1940 ~ James Seals, Singer, guitar, saxophone, fiddle with Seals and Crofts
• 1940 ~ One year before recording that memorable song, Fry Me Cookie, with a Can of Lard, Will Bradley’s orchestra recorded Five O’Clock Whistle, also on Columbia Records.
• 1941 ~ Alan Howard, Bass with Brian Poole & The Tremeloes
• 1942 ~ Gary Puckett, Singer with The Union Gap
• 1945 ~ Actress Ava Gardner made news. She married bandleader Artie Shaw.
• 1946 ~ Jim Tucker, Guitarist with The Turtles until 1965
• 1949 ~ Bill Hudson, Comedian, singer with The Hudson Brothers, was married to actress Goldie Hawn
• 1953 ~ The first concert of contemporary Canadian music presented in the U.S. was performed by conductor Leopold Stokowski at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
• 1955 ~ Jose Ferrer and Claire Bloom starred on NBC’s Producer’s Showcase. They performed in “Cyrano De Bergerac”. Ferrer also won an Oscar for his performance in the film version.
• 1958 ~ Alan Jackson, Singer
• 1962 ~ Though the ‘Fab Four’ would appear on both radio and television, on what they would call ‘Auntie Beeb’ (the BBC), The Beatles made their first appearance this day on Great Britain’s Grenada TV Network.
• 1967 ~ A controversial rock musical “Hair”, opened on this day at the Anspacher Theatre in New York City. It ran for 1,742 performances and then became a movie.
• 1983 ~ Actor Anthony Quinn lit up the Great White Way in the revival of the 1968 musical, “Zorba”, that reunited Quinn with Lila Kedrova, who played Madame Hortense. They both had appeared in the film portrayal, “Zorba the Greek”, which won Quinn a nomination for Best Actor, and an Oscar for Kedrova as Best Supporting Actress. This was one of the few films that came before the Broadway show, rather than the reverse.
• 2003 ~ Bernard Schwartz, who produced “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” the Academy Award-nominated biopic of country singer Loretta Lynn, died of complications following a stroke. He was 85. Schwartz was a one-time Broadway child actor who got into television and film production in the 1950s, working on the popular paranormal suspense show “Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond” and the hit science fiction film “Journey to the Center of the Earth.” Schwartz’ best known and most lauded production was “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” the 1980 film inspired by Lynn’s song of the same name. Sissy Spacek won an Oscar for her portrayal of Lynn and the film won the Golden Globe award for best musical or comedy. It also was nominated for an Oscar for best picture. In 1985, Schwartz featured Patsy Cline’s life in “Sweet Dreams,” which was named for one of her songs and starred Jessica Lange as the music legend killed in a plane crash. He also produced country singer Amy Grant’s 1986 TV special “Headin’ Home for the Holidays” and worked with Priscilla Presley on the 1988 miniseries “Elvis and Me.” Another of his best-known productions was 1983’s “Psycho II,” the darkly humorous but far bloodier sequel to Hitchcock’s 1960 thriller about troubled motel operator Norman Bates. Other feature films included “The Wackiest Ship in the Army,” “Global Affair,” which starred Bob Hope, and “Rage,” which starred Glenn Ford. Schwartz also produced “That Man Bolt” and “Bucktown,” both vehicles for former football star Fred Williamson, and the thriller “Roadgames” starring Stacey Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis.
• 1855 ~ William Barclay Squire, British musicologist
• 1893 ~ On this day a song called “Goodmorning to All” was copyrighted by two teachers who wrote it for their kindergarten pupils. The title was later changed to “Happy Birthday to You”. The copyright was claimed illegal in September, 2015.
• 1941 ~ Fry Me Cookie, with a Can of Lard was recorded by the Will Bradley Orchestra on Columbia. Ray McKinley was featured.
• 1942 ~ Dave Lovelady, Drummer with The Fourmost
• 1943 ~ C.F. (Fred) Turner, Musician with Bachman~Turner Overdrive
• 1947 ~ Bob Weir (Hall), American rock guitarist and singer with The Grateful Dead
• 1953 ~ Tony Carey, Keyboards with Rainbow
• 1959 ~ Gary Kemp, Guitarist with Spandau Ballet, brother of musician Martin Kemp
• 1969 ~ Wendy Wilson, Singer with Wilson Phillips, daughter of Beach Boys singer, Brian Wilson
• 1972 ~ John C. Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival called it a career … and the group disbanded. Fogerty continued in a solo career with big hits including, Centerfield and The Old Man Down the Road.
• 1976 ~ Memphis, TN disc jockey Rick Dees and his ‘Cast of Idiots’ made it all the way to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 with the immortal Disco Duck(Part 1). Dees is still around, but not as a recording artist. He’s a DJ in Los Angeles and is hosting several varieties of the Weekly Top 40 show, syndicated around the world.
• 1983 ~ George Liberace passed away. He was an American musician and television performer. Born in Menasha, Wisconsin, he was the elder brother and business partner of famed U.S. pianist Liberace.
• 1990 ~ Art Blakey passed away. He was an American jazz drummer and bandleader.
• 2000 ~ David Golub, American pianist and chamber music conductor, passed away at the age of 50. Born in Chicago, Golub grew up in Dallas, where he began learning the piano. In 1969 he moved to New York and spent his student years honing his technique at New York’s Juilliard School of Music. He also began conducting during summer breaks at Vermont’s Marlboro festival. In 1979, he accompanied violinist Isaac Stern on a tour of China. A film about the tour, “From Mao to Mozart,” won the 1980 Academy Award for Best Documentary. As a performer, Golub was perhaps best known for his work with violinist MarkKaplan and cellist Colin Carr in the trio they formed in 1982. In the late 1990s, Golub began cultivating his interest in opera. Under his leadership, the Padua Chamber Orchestra recorded some of Haydn’s least-known work for opera. An acclaimed chamber ensemble performer – most notably with the Golub-Kaplan-Carr Trio – Golub led the Padua Chamber Orchestra during the 1994-95 season and took it on tour in the United States in 1999. He is survived by his wife, Maria Majno.
• 2001 ~ Oscar-winning composer and lyricist Jay Livingston, whose collaboration with Ray Evans led to such hits as Silver Bells, Que Sera, Sera and Mona Lisa, died of pneumonia. He was 86. Livingston’s songwriting partnership with Evans spanned 64 years. Often called the last of the great songwriters, Livingston and Evans had seven Academy Award nominations and won three – in 1948 for Buttons and Bows in the film The Paleface, in 1950 for Mona Lisa in Captain Carey, USA, and in 1956 for Que Sera, Sera in The Man Who Knew Too Much. They wrote the television theme songs for Bonanza and Mr. Ed, and were honored by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers for the most performed music for film and TV for 1996. Livingston was born on March 28, 1915, in the Pittsburgh suburb of McDonald. He met Evans in 1937 at the University of Pennsylvania, where they were both students. The team’s final project was the recording, Michael Feinstein Sings the Livingston and Evans Song Book, due for 2002 release.
• 1894 ~ Albert Stoessel, American conductor and composer
• 1918 ~ Jerome Robbins (Rabinowitz), Academy Award-winning director of “West Side Story” in 1961, Tony Award-winning choreographer of “Fiddler on the Roof” in 1965, West Side Story in 1958, “High Button Shoes” in 1948, Tony Award-winning director of “Fiddler on the Roof” in 1965, Jerome Robbins’ Broadway in 1989.
• 1919 ~ Art Blakely, American jazz drummer, bandleader, composer
• 1932 ~ Dottie West (Dorothy Marie Marsh), Grammy Award-winning singer
• 1939 ~ One of the classics was recorded this day. Body and Soul, by jazz great Coleman Hawkins, was waxed on Bluebird Records. It’s still around on CD compilations.
• 1940 ~ Glenn Miller recorded Make Believe Ballroom Time for Bluebird Records at the Victor studios in New York City. It would become the theme song for Make Believe Ballroom on WNEW, New York, with host Martin Block. Block created the aura of doing a ‘live’ radio program, complete with performers (on records) like Harry James or Frank Sinatra, from the ‘Crystal Studios’ at WNEW. His daily program was known to everyone who grew up in the NYC/NJ/Philadelphia area in the 1940s and 1950s. Miller had been so taken with the show’s concept that he actually paid for the Make Believe Ballroom Time recording session himself and hired the Modernaires to join in.
• 1943 ~ Gene Watson, Singer
• 1946 ~ Viktor Tretyakov, Russian violinist
• 1948 ~ Starting this night and for 792 performances, the musical, “Where’s Charley?”, played on Broadway. It included the show-stopping hit song: Once in Love with Amy.
• 1949 ~ Daryl Hall (Hohl), Singer
• 1950 ~ Andre Woolfolk, Reeds with Earth, Wind and Fire
• 1955 ~ Lindy (Linda) Boone, Singer with The Boone Family, singer Pat Boone’s daughter
• 1967 ~ The Doors appeared at Danbury High School, Danbury, Connecticut. Before the group came on stage an announcer told the audience not to leave their seats during the performance or they would be escorted out of the venue. There was also a beauty pageant just prior to The Doors coming on stage.
• 1969 ~ One hit wonders Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Je t’aime… Moi non plus.’ Banned by many radio stations for its sexual content and sounds and for first time in the history of the show, the BBC’s Top Of The Pops producers refused to air the No. 1 song.
• 1996 ~ Johnny Costa, jazz pianist (Mr. Rogers), died at the age of 74
• 2001 ~ Beni Montresor, a Tony award-winning set and costume designer who was also known for his plays and children’s books, died at age 75. Montresor worked as a set designer at Rome’s Cinecitta Studios. In 1960, he moved to New York, where he designed sets and costumes for both Italian and New York theatrical and operatic productions and began to write and illustrate children’s books. In 1986, he won a Tony, Broadway’s highest award, for scenic design in The Marriage of Figaro.
• 1898 ~ Alfred Wallenstein, American cellist and conductor
• 1911 ~ Jo (Jonathan) Jones, Drummer, piano, reeds, trumpet. The first to minimize use of bass drum, keeping time on top cymbal. He played with Count Basie, Benny Goodman sextet.
• 1911 ~ Vaughn Monroe, Bandleader, singer
• 1922 ~ Martha Stewart (Haworth), Singer
• 1927 ~ Al Martino (Cini), Singer
• 1936 ~ Charles Dutoit, Symphony orchestra conductor
• 1940 ~ Artie Shaw’s orchestra recorded Hoagy Carmichael’s standard, Stardust, for Victor Records.
• 1942 ~ TIME magazine described Command Performance, which debuted this day, as “…the best wartime program in radio.” The show was originally produced by the U.S. War Department in cooperation with Armed Forces Radio Services specifically for those in the military overseas. It continued until 1949 and was reprised for more than three decades in syndication. Command Performance was hosted by Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Don Wilson and Harry Von Zell and featured just about every major Hollywood and Broadway star.
• 1945 ~ Kevin Godley, Drummer, singer with 10cc
• 1949 ~ David Hope, Bass with Kansas
• 1950 ~ The Frank Sinatra Show debuted. It was the crooner’s first plunge into TV, the beginning of a $250,000 per year, five-year contract. Ben Blue, The Blue Family, the Whippoorwills and Axel Stordahl’s orchestra were regulars on the show.
• 1951 ~ John Cougar Mellencamp, Singer
• 1953 ~ Tico Torres, Drummer with Bon Jovi
• 1955 ~ Yo-Yo Ma, Chinese-born American cello virtuoso
• 1969 ~ Put on your headband, love beads, surfer’s cross and give the peace sign. It was on this day that The Youngbloods hit, Get Together, passed the million-selling mark to achieve gold record status.
• 1982 ~ “Cats”, another musical hit by Andrew Lloyd Webber, began a long Broadway run. It’s most memorable for its song, Memories. Cats ended on September 10, 2000.
• 1995 ~ Alanis Morissette went to No.1 on the US album chart with her third album Jagged Little Pill. The record produced six successful singles, including ‘You Oughta Know’, ‘Ironic’, ‘You Learn’, ‘Hand in My Pocket’, and ‘Head over Feet’ and went on to become the biggest selling album ever by a female artist with sales over 30m. Do you have a favorite track from the album?
• 2000 ~ Dennis Sandole, a jazz guitarist and mentor to John Coltrane, died at 87. Beginning in the early 1940s, Sandole played with some of the major swing-era bands of the time, including those led by Charlie Barnet, Boyd Raeburn, Tommy Dorsey and Ray McKinley. He also recorded film soundtracks and played at recording sessions for Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday. Sandole was a mentor to jazz giantJohn Coltrane from 1946 to the early 1950s, teaching him music theory and exposing him to music from other cultures. He recorded some of his own music, including “Modern Music From Philadelphia” in 1956. In 1999 Cadence Jazz released “The Dennis Sandole Project,” which contained parts of a jazz ballet/opera he wrote in the 1960s and 70s called “Evenin’ Is Cryin'”. Sandole published a book, “Guitar Lore,” in 1981.
• 2003 ~ Arthur Berger, a composer, critic and teacher who was an influential analyst of contemporary music, died of heart failure. He was 91. In 1943, Berger began a decade as a music critic for the New York Herald Tribune. Later, he was one of the founders of the periodical Perspectives of New Music. In 1953, he published the first book-length study of composer Aaron Copland. Berger’s “Ideas of Order” premiered with the New York Philharmonic in 1952. His primary interest as a composer, however, was in chamber music and in music for the piano. His neoclassicalQuartet for Winds is probably his most performed work. Igor Stravinsky admired Berger’s music, and Copland wrote of its distinction, craftsmanship, individuality and idiosyncrasy. Over his career, Berger taught at Mills College in California, Brandeis University and the New England Conservatory of Music. Berger celebrated his 90th birthday last year by publishing a collection of essays, “Reflections of an American Composer.”
• 2003 ~ William Bennett, whose Manhattan music studio gave hope to those with aspirations of escaping the corporate world to become rock stars, Oct. 7 from injuries he received in a car accident. He was 49. Bennett bought Off Wall Street Jam in 1997. The TriBeCa studio became a place where he mentored other musicians and helped to arrange music engagements at city clubs. Bennett grew up on the Upper East Side in a show business family. He majored in music in college and played guitar in bands like the Immortal Primitives, which had opened for the Ramones. But he eventually wound up working at a photography agency and did not play guitar for years. A friend advised him to purchase the studio, which grew to more than 400 dues-paying members.
• 2003 ~ John Pagaard “Johnnie” Jessen, a former vaudeville saxophone player and University of Washington instructor who inspired pop musician Kenny G, died at the age of 94. At Jessen’s retirement from the university in 1989, Kenny Gorelick, who shortened his name to Kenny G for performing and recording, said 12 years of working with Jessen were crucial to his success. “I made a breakthrough after I started studying with Johnnie,” he said. “One morning I woke up and I could play twice as fast. He had this great tone on flute, and got me to the point where I was doubling on clarinet and flute.” The son of Danish immigrants, Jessen was playing the violin at parties by age 9 and soon afterward formed his first band, the Rinky Dinks. He went on to play on cruise ships crisscrossing the Pacific Ocean in the 1920s and on the RKO vaudeville circuit behind stars such as Betty Grable, Judy Garland and Sammy Davis, Jr. in the 1930s.
• 1786 ~ Friedrich Kuhlau, German-born Danish composer and pianist
More information about Kuhlau
• 1847 ~ This night an audience at the Eagle Saloon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania enjoyed Foster’s rendition of his minstrel song, Oh! Susanna. Stephen got a bottle of whiskey for his performance.
• 1850 ~ Jenny Lind sang at the Castle Garden Theatre in New York City. It was her first performance in America. Lind’s voice was so sweet that she was nicknamed ‘The Swedish Nightingale’.
• 1911 ~ Alice Tully, American mezzo-soprano and music patron
1956 ~ Arvo Pärt (1935) Estonian composer
More information about Pärt
• 1942 ~ Lola Falana, Singer, actress
• 1944 ~ Mickey Hart, Drummer, songwriter with Grateful Dead
• 1944 ~ Phil May, Singer with The Pretty Things; Fallen Angels
• 1945 ~ Ernest Tubb recorded It Just Doesn’t Matter Now and Love Turns to Hate on the Decca label. Tubb became the second recording artist to have made a commercial record in Nashville, TN.
• 1946 ~ Dennis Tufano, Guitarist, singer with The Buckinghams
• 1952 ~ Tommy Shaw, Guitarist with Styx
• 1959 ~ On this day in 1959 a statue to honor songwriter George M. Cohan was unveiled in New York City’s Duffy Square. Ten thousand people watched and sang his “Give My Regards to Broadway.” Today crowds gather near the statue daily to buy half-priced theater tickets.
• 1962 ~ Ringo Starr joined John, Paul and George for his first recording session as a Beatle, replacing bounced drummer Pete Best. Love Me Do was the result and it took 17 takes to complete … to everyone’s satisfaction.
• 1984 ~ Bruce Springsteen broke the attendance record at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. The Boss entertained 16,800 fans for the first of six sold-out shows. Springsteen broke his own record; one he set during a visit to Philly in 1981.
• 1993 ~ Erich Leinsdorf, Austrian-born American conductor, died at the age of 81
• 2001 ~ Larry Kegan, a singer-songwriter who performed in concert with Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne and others, died of cardiac arrest. He was 59. Kegan sang at Gov. Jesse Ventura’s inaugural celebration in 1999, at American Indian functions and at Stillwater prison. A paraplegic since a diving accident when he was 15, and a quadriplegic after a car accident a decade later, Kegan was nonetheless very active. Kegan ran a resort for disabled veterans in Mexico and managed orange groves in Florida before returning to Minnesota in the mid-1970s. He met Dylan when they were teenagers at a summer camp. Decades later, in 1978, Dylan dedicated his album Street Legal to Kegan.
• 2004 ~ Fred Ebb, American lyricist
• 2017 ~ Peter Hall, English stage, film and opera director (Royal Shakespeare Company, National Theatre director), died at the age of 86
• 1781 ~ Vincent Novello, English music publisher, organist and composer
• 1882 ~ John Powell, American pianist and composer
• 1899 ~ Billy Rose (Rosenberg), producer, author, songwriter
• 1923 ~ William Kraft, American percussionist, composer and conductor
• 1928 ~ Evgeny Svetlanov, Russian conductor and composer
• 1937 ~ Benny Goodman and his orchestra recorded “Sugar Foot Stomp” on Victor Records. The tune was a Fletcher Henderson arrangement.
• 1944 ~ Roger Waters, Musician: bass, songwriter with Pink Floyd
• 1948 ~ Claydes (Charles) Smith, Guitarist with Kool & The Gang
• 1954 ~ Banner Thomas, Bass with Molly Hatchet
• 1958 ~ Georgia Gibbs sang “The Hula-Hoop Song” on “The Ed Sullivan Show”. It was the first national exposure for the Hula-Hoop craze. Many people recorded the song to capitalize on the fad, including Teresa Brewer and Betty Johnson. Like sometimes happens with fads, these songs didn’t become very popular. The Hula-Hoop craze lasted a bit longer…
• 1961 ~ Paul Waaktaar, Guitarist, singer with a-ha
• 1975 ~ Glen Campbell hit #1 on the “Billboard” pop music chart with “Rhinestone Cowboy”. It had reached the top position on the country chart on August 23rd.
• 1976 ~ Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were reunited by Frank Sinatra – after 20 years of going their separate ways. The former comedy team warmly met each other again during a surprise visit by Martin to Lewis’s annual “Labor Day Telethon” for Muscular Dystrophy.
• 1984 ~ Country-music star Ernest Tubb died this day, at the age of 70. Tubb was from Crisp, Texas and was known as the ‘Texas Troubadour’. He patterned his unique style after Jimmie Rodgers. Tubb recorded “I’m Walking the Floor Over You” and sold more than three million copies of the tune. “Blue Christmas”, “I Love You Because”, “Missing In Action” and “Thanks a Lot” were also classics made famous by Tubb. Other recording artists as diverse as The Andrews Sisters, Loretta Lynn and Red Foley recorded with Tubb. His 1979 album, “The Legend and the Legacy”, was a top-ten hit. Tubb was a member of the Grand Ole Opry since 1943 and was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1965.
• 1984 ~ Ginger Rogers was in Buffalo, NY for a homecoming at Shea’s Theatre. The star of so many great motion pictures, Rogers had played the Shea 55 years earlier.
• 1986 ~ Bananarama hit the top spot on the pop music charts with “Venus”. The tune had also been a number one hit for the Dutch group, The Shocking Blue (2/07/70).
• 1997 ~ The Westminster Abbey funeral for Diana, Princess of Wales, was an extraordinary event, marked by numerous poignant moments: The people sobbing and throwing flowers at the funeral cortege winding through the streets of London. Her sons, walking behind her casket with their heads bowed. And Diana’s brother, who during his funeral oration took aim at the media, who he said made the princess “the most hunted person of the modern age.” Elton John sang a rewritten version of “Candle in the Wind” to “England’s rose”. The song was originally a tribute to film legend Marilyn Monroe, whose own tragic life, like Diana’s, ended at the age of just 36.
• 2002 ~ Rafael Druian, a violinist and conductor who served as concertmaster of four American orchestras, died at the age of 80. Druian’s lengthy career spanned many roles – performer, conductor and teacher. He was the concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. Born in Vologda, Russia, Druian grew up in Havana, Cuba and began his musical training at an early age. He came to Philadelphia when he was 10 to audition for Leopold Stokowski, who recommended him for a scholarship at the Curtis School of Music. He graduated from Curtis in 1942 and served in the United States Army for four years and played in the army band. During his career, Druian appeared on some groundbreaking recordings of lesser-known violin works. In the 1950s he made recordings of Block, Janácek and Enesco. After working with orchestras around the country, his final concertmaster position was at the Philharmonic from 1971 to 1974. When he finished there he taught at Boston University and the Curtis Institute of Music.
• 2007 ~ Luciano Pavarotti, Italian tenor, died at the age of 71
• 1928 ~ Wingy Manone recorded Downright Disgusted for Vocalion Records. Playing drums for Wingy was a young sideman named Gene Krupa.
• 1930 ~ Mitzi Gaynor (Franchesca Mitzi Marlene de Charney von Gerber), Singer, dancer, actress
• 1942 ~ Merald ‘Bubba’ Knight, Singer with Gladys Night and the Pips
• 1944 ~ Gene Parsons, Drummer with The Byrds
• 1946 ~ Gary Duncan (Grubb), Musician, guitar with Quicksilver Messenger Service
• 1946 ~ Greg Elmore, Musician, drums with Quicksilver Messenger Service
• 1950 ~ Ronald LaPread, Bass with Commodores
• 1951 ~ Martin Chambers, Drummer with The Pretenders
• 1959 ~ Mack the Knife was banned from radio – at least from WCBS Radio in New York
City. Teenage stabbings in the city had people pretty uptight; therefore, the ban.
• 1971 ~ The Lawrence Welk Show was seen for the last time on ABC~TV. ABC felt the show attracted “too old an audience … not good for attracting advertisers.” Syndication allowed the champagne music to continue until 1982 as a weekly favorite for millions of people. Welk charted a half-dozen tunes on the pop music charts between 1956 and 1961, including the number one song, Calcutta, in 1960.
• 1982 ~ After six weeks, Eye of the Tiger, by Survivor, dropped out of the top spot on the music charts. The song, from the movie, Rocky III, dropped all the way to number 2 (for two weeks), then to number 3 for one week and to number 4 for two weeks before starting to fade. That’s what we call a hit, folks! It was the group’s biggest, earning them a platinum record.
• 2001 ~ Robert Pagent, a dancer and choreographer who appeared in the original productions of Oklahoma! and Carousel died at the age of 87. Born Robert Weisser in Pittsburgh, Pagent began his career in European classical ballet troupes in the 1930s. In 1942 he adopted the stage name Robert Pagent and was square-dance caller in the premier of Agnes de Mille’s cowboy-themed ballet, Rodeo. It was the start of a long friendship and collaboration with DeMille and choreographer Jerome Robbins. The following year he replaced an injured dancer in the original cast of Oklahoma! a night after its opening. Two years later he appeared in the premiere of Carousel. Pagent was a choreographer for television in the 1950s and 60s, including the Miss America Pageant. He staged Rudolph Nureyev’s first U.S. television appearance.
• 2003 ~ Susan Chilcott, one of Britain’s leading opera singers, died. She was 40. Chilcott, a soprano, had performed across Europe and with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Chilcott made her Royal Opera House debut in Covent Garden June 2003 to glowing reviews, playing Lisa in Tchaikovsky’s “Queen Of Spades” opposite Placido Domingo.
• 2003 ~ Tibor Varga, a conductor and violinist known for his teaching and for his performances of Béla Bartók and other modern masters, died. He was 82. Varga was born in Hungary and made his public debut with Mendelssohn’s E minor concerto when he was 10. He began touring in Europe while a teenager and studied in Budapest and in Berlin. After World War II he performed widely as a violin virtuoso. In 1947 he moved to England, where he obtained British citizenship. He founded the Tibor Varga Chamber Orchestra in Detmold, Germany, in 1954, then moved to Switzerland, where he was based the rest of his life. He continued to conduct the Detmold-based orchestra until 1988. His repertoire covered baroque, classical and romantic works, but he was best known for his performances of modern composers including Stravinsky, Schoenberg and Berg.
• 2016 ~ David Brown, American guitarist (Santana), died at the age of 53
• 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.
Grammy winner
1956 ~ Arvo Pärt (1935) Estonian composer
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