September 30 ~ Today in Music

today

 

• 1852 ~ Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, Irish composer and organist

• 1908 ~ David Oistrakh, Russian violinist

https://youtu.be/DJh6i-t_I1Q

• 1922 ~ Oscar Pettiford, Bass, cello. He played with Charlie Barnet, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Stan Getz

• 1933 ~ The theme song was Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here and it opened the National Barn Dance. The half-hour country music and comedy show, originally heard on WLS, Chicago since 1924, moved to the NBC Blue network this night. National Barn Dance was broadcast from the Eighth Street Theater in Chicago, where the stage was transformed into a hayloft every Saturday night. The host was Joe Kelly. Uncle Ezra was played by Pat Barrett who was known to say, “Give me a toot on the tooter, Tommy,” as he started dancing. A few of the other Barn Dance characters were Arkie, the Arkansas Woodchopper; Pokey Martin; the Hoosier Hotshots; the Prairie Ramblers; cowgirl, Patsy Montana; Pat Buttram; Lulu Belle and the Cumberland Road Runners. Gene Autry and Red Foley were heard early in their careers on National Barn Dance. Although there were plenty of sponsors (Alka Seltzer, One-A-Day vitamins, Phillips Milk of Magnesia), the National Barn Dance was one of the few radio shows to charge admission!

https://youtu.be/lvDDMHwJh3U

• 1935 ~ Jill Corey (Norma Jean Speranza), Singer

• 1935 ~ Johnny Mathis, American singer of popular music

• 1935 ~ “Summertime … and the livin’ is easy.” Porgy and Bess was presented for the first time, at the Colonial Theatre in Boston. It was a flop! It was revived in 1942. It wasn’t a flop that time. It ran longer than any revival in the history of U.S. musical theater.

https://youtu.be/fpV4kmMlSzw

• 1941 ~ The Larry Clinton Orchestra recorded their version of That Solid Old Man, on Bluebird Records.

• 1942 ~ Frankie Lymon, Singer: recorded at age 14

• 1942 ~ Dewey Martin, Drummer, singer with Buffalo Springfield

• 1943 ~ Marilyn McCoo (Davis), Singer with The Fifth Dimension, TV hostess of Solid Gold from 1981 to 1984 and 1986 to 1988, TV music reporter

• 1946 ~ Sylvia Peterson, Singer with The Chiffons

• 1953 ~ Deborah Allen (Thurmond), Singer

• 1954 ~ Julie Andrews, who would later become a household name in movies, TV and on records, opened on Broadway for the first time. The future star of The Sound of Music appeared in The Boy Friend this night.

• 1976 ~ Mary Ford passed away

• 1977 ~ President Jimmy Carter designated October as the official country music month.

• 2003 ~ Ronnie Dawson, the rock singer known as the “Blonde Bomber,” died. He was 64. Dawson was diagnosed in 2002 with throat cancer but continued to perform. One of his last gigs was an emotional performance at the Rockabilly Rave festival in England in February. He enthralled fans at the Big D Jamboree in the 1950s and at Carnegie Hall in the 1990s. Among Dawson’s songs as a teenager in the 1950s wereAction Packed and I Make the Love. He was famous for live performances where he would jump from the stage, run through the audience and play his guitar while standing on a table. In the late 1950s, Dawson recast himself as an R&B artist named Snake Monroe, signed briefly with Columbia Records, and then joined the local Western swing pioneers the Light Crust Doughboys. In the 1960s, he packed the Levee Club with the Levee Singers, a folk act that appeared nationally on “The Danny Kaye Show” and “The Jimmy Dean Show.” After the Levee Singers broke up, he formed a country band, Steel Rail, and later sang television and radio jingles.

• 2003 ~ Robert LaMarchina, conductor of the Honolulu Symphony from 1967 to 1978, died. He was 75. Born in New York City, Robert LaMarchina began studying the cello at the age of 7. At 8, he made his first appearance as a solo cellist with the St. Louis Symphony. LaMarchina was 15 when famed conductor Arturo Toscanini hired him to perform with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. LaMarchina made is first appearance as a conductor in 1951 in Japan in the Fujiwara Opera’s production of “Madame Butterfly”. He later taught music at Indiana University, traveled with the Ambassadors of Opera and conducted operas on the West Coast.

September 11 ~ Today in Music History

We will always remember 911

 

OCMS 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

OCMS 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.

• 1967 ~ Harry Connick, Jr., Grammy Award-winning singer

• 1969 ~ Leon Payne passed away

• 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.

• 2001 ~ Larry Kegan, a singer-songwriter who performed in concert with Bob DylanJackson 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 teen-agers at a summer camp. Decades later, in 1978, Dylan dedicated his album Street Legal to Kegan.

September 6 ~ Today in Music History

today

 

• 1781 ~ Vincent Novello, English music publisher, organist and composer

• 1899 ~ Billy Rose (Rosenberg), producer, author, songwriter

• 1923 ~ William Kraft, American percussionist, composer and conductor

• 1928 ~ Evgeny Svetlanov, Russian conductor and composer
More about Svetlanov

• 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.

September 4 ~ Today in Music History

today

 

OCMS1824 ~ Anton Bruckner, Austrian composer and organist
More information about Bruckner
Read quotes by and about Bruckner

OCMS 1892 ~ Darius Milhaud, French composer
More information about Milhaud

• 1905 ~ Meade “Lux” Lewis, American jazz pianist

• 1907 ~ Edvard Grieg passed away
More information about Grieg

• 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.
More information about Welk

• 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” oppositePlacido 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.

September 3 ~ Today in Music History

today

• 1596 ~ Nicolo Amati, Violin maker, passed away in 1684

• 1910 ~ Dorothy Maynor, American soprano and educator

• 1914 ~ Tom Glazer, American folk singer, composer of a film score
More about Tom Glazer

• 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 band leader and pioneer in jazz percussion, Jones anchored the Count Basie Orchestra rhythm section from 1934 to 1948.

August 26 ~ Today in Music History

today

 

• 1873 ~ Lee DeForest, Inventor of the triode vacuum tube, possibly the most significant invention that made radio possible.
More information about DeForest

• 1894 ~ Arthur Loesser, American pianist and writer

• 1915 ~ Humphrey Searle, British composer and writer

• 1919 ~ Ronny Graham (Ronald Montcrief Stringer), Singer, actor

• 1928 ~ Peter Appleyard, British jazz vibraphonist and drummer

• 1939 ~ The radio program Arch Oboler’s Plays presented the NBC Symphony, for the first time, as the musical backdrop for the drama, This Lonely Heart.

• 1942 ~ Vic Dana, Singer

• 1949 ~ Bob Cowsill, Singer with The Cowsills

• 1957 ~ John O’Neill, Musician, guitar with That Petrol Emotion

• 1958 ~ Ralph Vaughan Williams, Composer, passed away
More information on Vaughan Williams

• 1960 ~ Branford Marsalis, Musician, saxophone, bandleader with The Tonight Show, toured with Sting
More information about the Marsalis family

• 1967 ~ Brian Epstein passed away

• 1970 ~ Jimi Hendrix opened his recording studio in New York City. Because of its state-of-the-art 36-track recording capability, it attracted many top rock groups.

• 2000 ~ George Edmund Sandell, a noted violin and viola player, teacher and inventor died at the age of 88.
Sandell studied in New York under the viola virtuoso William Primrose and on scholarship at the Royal Swedish Conservatory in Stockholm.
Sandell moved to Los Angeles in 1938, where he played with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Pasadena and Santa Monica Symphonies.
Along with classical music, he performed pop, swing and Latin music, and played with the string sections of big band luminaries Harry James, Jimmy Dorsey and  Xavier Cugat.
Sandell also played on some of Frank Sinatra’s recordings and worked for most of the big Hollywood studios on orchestral sound tracks, including the sound track for the movie Citizen Kane.
In 1947, he invented the Gee-Bee, a kitchen sponge with a plastic handle for washing dishes. He sold the company to DuPont in 1953.

• 2001 ~ Alix Williamson, the classical music publicist who suggested to Baroness Maria von Trapp that she write a book about her family’s experiences, died at the age of 85.
Williamson’s suggestion resulted in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The Sound of Music.”
She represented artists such as André Watts and Frederica von Stade and helped the New York Grand Opera get a citation in the Guinness Book of World Records for its performances of a complete cycle of Verdi’s operas in Central Park. Williamson also ghostwrote books.

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

• 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’reBreaking 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.

August 11 ~ Today in Music History

today

 

 

• 1862 ~ Carrie Jacobs Bond, American composer

• 1919 ~ Ginette Neveu, French violinist

• 1925 ~ Mike Douglas (Dowd), TV host of The Mike Douglas Show; singer, The Music Show, Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge

• 1927 ~ Raymond Leppard, British conductor and harpsichordist

• 1941 ~ Glenn Miller and his Orchestra recorded Elmer’s Tune on Bluebird Records.

• 1942 ~ Mike Hugg, Musician, drums with Chapter Three, Manfred Mann

• 1943 ~ Jim Kale, Musician, bass with The Guess Who

• 1943 ~ Guy Vallari, Singer with Regents

• 1949 ~ Eric Carmen, Musician, bass, keyboards, songwriter, singer with The Raspberries

• 1950 ~ Erik Braunn, Musician, guitar, singer with Iron Butterfly

• 1955 ~ Joe Jackson, Singer

• 1958 ~ Elvis Presley received a gold record for the hit, Hard Headed Woman. The song was featured in the movie King Creole.

• 1987 ~ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles was called “the best album made during the last 20 years” by the respected music publication, Rolling Stone magazine.

• 1996 ~ Rafael Kubelik, Czech conductor, died aged 82. He made his debut with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in 1934 and went into exile in 1948 and made an emotional return when he conducted the opening concert of the 1990 Prague Spring music festival.

August 1 ~ Today in Music History

today

 

• 1779 ~ Francis Scott Key, born
More information about Key
Listen to Francis Scott Key’s Star Spangled Banner
Read about the Star Spangled Banner

• 1877 ~ Angela Diller, American pianist and educator

• 1919 ~ Oscar Hammerstein I passed away

• 1930 ~ Lionel Bart, Broadway Composer

• 1930 ~ Geoffrey Holder, Dancer

• 1939 – American band leader Glenn Miller recorded In the Mood which later became his theme tune.

• 1942 ~ Jerry Garcia, American rock guitarist, banjo, lyricist and singer with The Grateful Dead

• 1942 ~ Jimmy Dorsey and his orchestra recorded Charleston Alley, on Decca Records.

• 1942 ~ The American Federation of Musicians went on strike. Union president James C. Petrillo told musicians that phonograph records were “a threat to members’ jobs.” As a result, musicians refused to perform in recording sessions over the next several months. Live, musical radio broadcasts continued, however.

• 1947 ~ Rick Anderson, Musician, bass with The Tubes

• 1947 ~ Rick Coonce, Singer, drummer with The Grassroots

• 1953 ~ Robert Cray, Guitar

• 1960 ~ Chubby Checker’s The Twist was released. The song inspired the dance craze of the 1960s.

• 1971 ~ The Concert for Bangladesh was held at Madison Square Garden in New York City. George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, Ravi Shankar and Billy Preston performed. A multirecord set commemorating the event was a super sales success. Together, the concert and the album raised over $11 million to help the starving minions of Bangladesh.

• 1981 ~ MTV (Music Television) made its debut at 12:01 a.m.

• 1984 ~ Singer Jermaine Jackson made a guest appearance on the TV soap opera, As the World Turns.

• 1997 ~ Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter died of a heart attack in a Moscow hospital. He was 82.

 

July 20 ~ Today in Music History

today

 

• 1872 ~ Déodat de Séeverac, French composer

• 1913 ~ Sally Ann Howes, Singer

• 1932 ~ Nam June Paik, Korean-born American avant-guarde composer

• 1938 ~ Jo Ann Campbell, Singer

• 1940 ~ Billboard magazine published its first listing of best-selling singles. 10 tunes were listed.

• 1943 ~ John Lodge, Guitar with Justin Hayward, singer with the Moody Blues

• 1944 ~ T.G. Shepherd (William Bowder), Country Singer

• 1946 ~ Kim Carnes, Grammy Award-winning singer, co-wrote score to Flashdance

• 1946 ~ John Almond, Reeds, keyboards, vibes with Johnny Almond and the Music Machine

• 1947 ~ Carlos Santana, Mexican-born American rock guitarist

• 1958 ~ Mick McNeil, Keyboards with Simple Minds

• 1961 ~ Stop the World, I Want to Get Off opened in London. The show went to Broadway in 1962.

• 1963 ~ Dino Esposito, Singer

• 1963 ~ Ray Conniff received two gold-record awards – for the albums, Concert in Rhythm and Memories are Made of This – on Columbia Records. Conniff recorded dozens of albums of easy listening music for the label. He had been a trombonist and arranger with Bunny Berigan, Bob Crosby, Harry James, Vaughn Monroe andArtie Shaw.

• 1964 ~ Chris Cornell, Grammy Award-winning musician: drums, singer, songwriter with Soundgarden

• 1966 ~ Stone Gossard, Rock Musician