• 1766 ~ Rodolphe Kreutzer, French violinist, teacher and composer. In 1810 a broken arm ended his virtuoso career. Beethoven dedicated sonata op 47 to him.
• 1905 ~ Mantovani, Orchestra leader, (1953 UK No.1 single ‘Moulin Rouge’, 1957 US No. 12 single ‘Around The World In Eighty Days’) was born. He died on 30th March 1980.
• 1914 ~ Jorge Bolet, Cuban-born American pianist was born
• 1926 ~ NBC broadcast its first music program. It featured the New York Symphony Orchestra and many distinguished soloists. 24 stations carried the first broadcast. The program was a gala 4½-hour broadcast from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Two remote pickups were also on the program. Opera star Mary Garden sang from Chicago and Will Rogers presented a humorous monologue from Independence, Kansas. Charles Lindbergh was among the luminaries who attended the broadcast.
• 1928 ~ C.W. McCall (William Fries), Singer, songwriter was born
• 1932 ~ Petula Clark, British pop singer (Downtown, My Love) was born
• 1933 ~ Clyde (Lensley) McPhatter, Singer with the Dominoes was born
• 1937 ~ Little Willie John (William Edward John), Singer, convicted of manslaughter
• 1942 ~ Daniel Barenboim, Argentine-born Israeli pianist and conductor of English Chamber Orchestra was born. “He’s not a pianist who conducts, or a conductor who plays the piano: he’s a total musician.” – Lang Lang
• 1945 ~ Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Singer with Abba was born
• 1946 ~ Janet Lennon, Singer with The Lennon Sisters was born
• 1954 ~ Tony Thompson, Drummer with Chic; played with Led Zeppelin, Live Aid, drummer with Patti LaBelle was born
• 1954 ~ Studio One on CBS-TV featured Joan Weber singing Let Me Go, Lover. The song had enjoyed limited popularity before the TV show, but skyrocketed to fame immediately after.
• 1956 ~ Love Me Tender, the first Elvis Presley film, premiered.
.1963 ~ Fritz Reiner died at the age of 74. He was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century. Hungarian born and trained, he emigrated to the United States in 1922, where he rose to prominence as a conductor with several orchestras. He reached the pinnacle of his career while music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the 1950s and early 1960s.
• 1967 ~ Mari Fernandez, Singer with Sweet Sensation was born
• 1969 ~ The first album featuring Karen and Richard Carpenter was released by A&M Records. The offering would not be a big seller, but a single from the disc, a remake of The Beatles’Ticket to Ride, would gain national attention. Their next album, however, would establish them as major international stars (Close to You).
• 1969 ~ Janis Joplin was arrested during a gig in Tampa, Florida, after badmouthing a policeman and using vulgar and indecent language. Joplin became upset after police moved into the hall forcing fans to move back to their seats. As the singer left the stage she confronted a detective calling him ‘a son of a bitch’ and told him she would kick his face in. She was released on $504 bail.
• 1974 ~ The most expensive 2-record album was released on Casablanca Records. It was a comedy disc titled, Here’s Johnny – Magic Moments from the Tonight Show.
• 1974 ~ The group, Faces, released their tune with the longest title. You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything (Even Take the Dog for a Walk, Mend a Fuse, Fold Away the Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings).
• 1980 ~ After years of success on the music charts with the New Christy Minstrels and the First Edition, Kenny Rogers got his first #1 song. Lady, written by Lionel Richie, stayed at the top for six weeks.
• 1986 ~ The first major operetta written by Gian Carlo Menotti in over 20 years was presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Starring tenor Placido Domingo, Goya was said by critics to be only “intermittently good.”
• 2003 ~ David Holt, a former child actor once touted by Paramount Pictures as its answer to Shirley Temple, has died. He was 76. Holt, who later became a successful jazz musician and songwriter, died of congestive heart failure. Although his career never rivaled Temple’s, Holt had his share of success as a child actor, playing Elizabeth Taylor’s older brother in “Courage of Lassie” in 1946 and appearing as bratty Sidney Sawyer in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” in 1938. He also played the crippled boy for whom New York Yankee great Lou Gehrig hit a home run in “Pride of the Yankees” and appeared in “The Big Broadcast of 1936.” Paramount signed Holt to a long-term contract after his 1934 role as a boy whose mother dies in “You Belong To me.” Holt eventually segued into music. He co-wrote the song The Christmas Blues with Sammy Cahn and wrote the music for numerous jazz albums. He hosted the TV show “American Music Shop” in the 1990s.
• 2018 ~ Roy Clark, American singer and musician beloved by generations of fans for his work on the TV show Hee Haw died at the age of 85.
. 1669 ~ Miquel Lopez, composer, born. He died sometime in 1723
. 1671 ~ Francesco Stradivari, Italian violin maker
. 1862 ~ The Battle Hymn of the Republic was first published in “Atlantic Monthly”. The lyric was the work of Julia Ward Howe. The Battle Hymn of the Republic is still being sung and to the tune of a song titled John Brown’s Body.
. 1869 ~ Victor Herbert, Composer, cellist and conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony. He composed operettas such as Babes in Toyland, Naughty Marietta and songs like Ah Sweet Mystery of Life (At Last I’ve Found You)
. 1877 ~ Thomas Frederick Dunhill, English composer and writer on musical subjects
. 1894 ~ James P. Johnson, American pianist and composer (Charleston), born in New Brunswick, New Jersey
. 1896 ~ Puccini’s “La Bohème” premiered in Turin, Italy. La Bohème is an opera in four acts, composed by Giacomo Puccini between 1893 and 1895 to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème (1851) by Henri Murger. The story is set in Paris around 1830, and shows the Bohemian lifestyle of a poor seamstress and her artist friends.
. 1904 ~ Enrico Caruso recorded his first sides for Victor Records. He did ten songs in the session and was paid only $4,000.
. 1937 ~ Don Everly born, Singer with his brother, Phil, in The Everly Brothers. Some of their hits were: Wake Up Little Susie, Bye Bye Love, Cathy’s Clown and All I Have To Do Is Dream
. 1937 ~ Ray Sawyer, Singer with Dr. Hook and The Medicine Show
. 1939 ~ Benny Goodman and his orchestra recorded And the Angels Sing on Victor Records. The vocalist on that number, who went on to find considerable fame at Capitol Records, was Martha Tilton.
. 1940 ~ Frank Sinatra sang Too Romantic and The Sky Fell Down in his first recording session with the Tommy Dorsey Band. The session was in Chicago, IL. Frankie replaced Jack Leonard as lead singer with the band.
. 1941 ~ “Downbeat” magazine reported this day that Glenn Miller had inked a new three-year contract with RCA Victor Records. The pact guaranteed Miller $750 a side, the fattest record contract signed to that time.
. 1949 ~ RCA Victor countered Columbia Records’ 33-1/3 long play phonograph disk with not only a smaller, 7-inch record (with a big hole in the center), but an entire phonograph playing system as well. The newfangled product, the 45- rpm, which started a revolution (especially with the new rock and roll music), soon made the 78-rpm record a blast from the past.
. 1952 ~ Rick James (James Johnson), Singer
. 1954 ~ Mike Campbell, Guitarist with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
. 1968 ~ Elvis Presley celebrated the birth of his daughter, Lisa Marie. Lisa Marie married and divorced the ‘Gloved One’, Michael Jackson, in the ’90s.
. 1971 ~ The soundtrack album from the movie, “Love Story”, starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw, with music by Frances Lai, was certified as a gold record on this day.
. 1995 ~ Richey Edwards, guitarist with the Manic Street Preachers, vanished leaving no clues to his whereabouts. He left The Embassy Hotel in London at 7am, leaving behind his packed suitcase. His car was found on the Severn Bridge outside Bristol, England sixteen days later. Edwards has never been found, despite constant searching, and in November 2008 he was declared officially dead.
. 2002 ~ Hildegard Knef, a smoky-voiced actress and singer who starred in Germany’s first post-World War II movie and scandalized church officials with a 1951 nude scene, died of a lung infection at a Berlin hospital. She was 76. Knef became a star for her role as a former concentration camp inmate returning home in Wolfgang Staudte’s 1946 “Murderers Are Among Us.” Knef, who sometimes went as Hildegard Neff in the United States, appeared in more than 50 films, most of them made in Europe. She reportedly turned down a Hollywood studio contract after being told she would have to change her name and say she was Austrian, not German. She scandalized Roman Catholic authorities with a brief nude scene in the 1951 German film “The Story Of A Sinner.” Her work in the United States included the role of Ninotchka in Cole Porter’s Broadway musical “Silk Stockings” in the 1950s, and a supporting role in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” She launched a career as a singer in the 1960s and wrote a best-selling 1970 autobiography. She continued to act and sing almost until the end of her life, appearing as herself in the 2000 documentary “Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song” and in the 1999 German comedy, “An Almost Perfect Wedding.”
. 2003 ~ Latin jazz musician Ramon “Mongo” Santamaria, a Cuban-born percussionist and bandleader known for his conga rhythms, died in Miami at age 85. He was best known for his 1963 recording of Herbie Hancock’s song Watermelon Man, which became his first Top 10 hit. In 1959, Santamaria penned Afro Blue, which quickly became a jazz standard covered by stars such as Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie. Born in Havana, Santamaria performed at Havana’s famed Tropicana Club before moving to New York City in the early 1950s, touring with the Mambo Kings and performing with Tito Puente and Cal Tjader. Santamaria recorded scores of albums in a career that spanned nearly 40 years, mixing rhythm and blues with jazz and hip-swaying conga. In 1977 he was awarded a Grammy for Best Latin Recording for his album “Amancer.” In recent years, he divided his time between Manhattan and Miami.
. 2018 ~ Alan Stout, American composer, died at the age of 85
. 2018 ~ Dennis Edwards, who joined the Temptations in 1968 and sang on a string of the group’s hits including “I Can’t Get Next to You,” “Ball of Confusion” and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” in an initial tenure that stretched to 1977, died at the age of 74.
Lorin Maazel performed at the 1939 New York World’s Fair when he was only 9. He conducted two major symphonies before he was 13 and went on to a successful career as an adult conductor.
MacDowell
Edward MacDowell lived from 1860 until 1908. He was an American pianist and composer and was one of the first American composers to achieve any degree of international fame. He studied in Paris, eventually at the Conservatoire, before moving to study the piano with Carl Heymann at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, where he had composition lessons with Joachim Raff. There was encouragement from Liszt and further years spent in Europe until his return to the United States in 1888. There he succeeded in establishing himself as a teacher, pianist and composer, with appointment as the first Professor of Music at Columbia,a position he held until 1904. His last years were clouded by mental illness.
Piano music by MacDowell is effective if not innovative. It includes two piano concertos, four sonatas, the Tragica, Eroica, Norse and Keltic, studies and a quantity of genre pieces.
Machaut
Guillaume de Machaut was born sometime around 1300 in Rheims(?), France and died: April 13, 1377. Rheims, France He was a French poet and musician as well as a composer of monophonic and polyphonic music. He is also known as the leading representative of the Ars nova tradition.
Machaut lived his life in the higher ranks of service, first as secretary to John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia, and then as a canon (a church official) at the Cathedral of Rheims. Like many in the fourteenth century, Machaut’s life and works reflect an equal measure of the sacred and secular. Most of his works were either secular (such as his many chansons) or a mix of sacred and ceremonial (including many of his motets and his hocket David, which was probably written for the coronation service of King Charles V in 1364). At the same time, he wrote what is probably the first full setting of the Mass Ordinary by a single composer (the Messe de Nostre Dame). He was a man of the cloth, having taken minor orders at an early age. Yet toward the end of his life he maintained a romantic/literary affair with a young woman named Perrone.
Much of Machaut’s polyphonic music reflects the interest that composers had in building complex structures based on the repetition and manipulation of borrowed melodies (a technique called isorhythm). In some of his works, these techniques are applied to all the voices. The harmonies found in Machaut’s pieces are built around the fifth and the octave, the primary consonances of the period. His secular music carries on the musical and textual traditions of the troubadours and trouv?res. Most are written in the fixed forms such as the virelei, rondeau and ballade.
Marchaut’s works include: Sacred/ceremonial music, including Messe de Nostre Dame, 23 motets, hocket “David” Secular music, including 42 ballades, 22 rondeaux, 33 virelais, 19 lais, 1 complainte, 1 chanson royale
Mahler
Gustav Mahler lived from 1860 until 1911. Like so many other musicians, Mahler started early, learning the piano at six and giving his first recital at the age of ten.
In 1909, he became conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna Court Opera. Mahler, a Bohemian composer, used huge orchestras, the largest for his “Symphony for a Thousand”. He also completed nine symphonies and several song-cycles notably “Das Lied von der Erde.” Mahler’s music was used in the 1971 movie, Death in Venice.
Mancini
Henry Mancini (Enrico Nicola Mancini) lived from 1924 until 1994. He was an Academy Award-winning composer of movies such as Moon River in 1961, Days of Wine and Roses in 1962, Breakfast at Tiffany’s score in 1961, Victor/Victoria score in 1982. He also composed themes for The Pink Panther, Mr. Lucky, Peter Gunn, Charade, NBC Mystery Movie, NBC Nightly News, Love Theme from Romeo & Juliet and received 20 Grammy Awards.
Marriner
Sir Neville Marriner, born in 1924, is a British violinist and conductor. He was born in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, EC England, UK and he studied at the Royal College of Music and the Paris Conservatory. He first played violin with the London Philharmonia and the London Symphony Orchestra, then turned to conducting. He has held posts with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra from 1968 until 1977, the Minnesota Orchestra from 1979 until 1986, and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra 1984 until 1989. Since 1956 he has been founder-director of the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields chamber ensemble. He was knighted in 1985.
Marsalis
The Marsalis clan of New Orleans is a large one. Ellis, the head of the family, plays piano, Jason plays drums. Wynton plays trumpet and Branford plays saxophone. Together and individually, this family has done quite a lot to inspire young musicians.
Massanet
Jules Emile Frederick Massenet lived from 1842 until 1912. He was a composer who was born in Montaud, France. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where he was professor from 1878 until 1896. He made his name with the comic opera Don Caesar de Bazan. Other operas followed, including Manon (1884), considered by many to be his masterpiece, Le Cid (1885), and Werther (1892). Among his other works are oratorios, orchestral suites, music for piano, and songs.
McCartney
Sir (James) Paul McCartney was born in 1942. He is a musician, songwriter, and composer who was born in Liverpool, Merseyside, NW England, UK. He was the Beatles’ bass guitarist, vocalist, and member of the Lennon-McCartney songwriting team, he made his debut as a soloist with the album McCartney (1970), heralding the break-up of the group. In 1971 he formed the band Wings (disbanded in 1981) with his wife Linda (1942–98). “Mull of Kintyre’ (1977) became the biggest-selling UK single (2.5 million). In 1979 he was declared the most successful composer of all time: by 1978 he had written or co-written 43 songs that sold over a million copies each.
His Liverpool Oratorio (written in association with Carl Davis) was performed by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra at Liverpool Cathedral in 1991, and he has since continued to develop his interests as a classical composer, notably in Standing Stone (1997). He collaborated with Harrison and Starr in the retrospective Beatles’ anthology in 1995.
He wrote the books All You Need Is Love (1968) and Paul McCartney In His Own Words (1976), and wrote, produced, and composed the music for a successful animated film, Rupert and the Frog Song in 1984.
He won a Grammy Award in 1990 and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 15, 1999. He was knighted in 1997.
McPartland
Marian Turner McPartland was born in Windsor, England in 1920. She is a versatile pianist and jazz musician. She moved to America in 1945 and led a trio from 1951 and founded Halcyon Records. In 1973 she began an adjunct career as the host of jazz radio programs and National Public Radio show – Marian McPartand?s Piano Jazz.
Melba
Nellie Melba, whose birth name was Helen Porter Mitchell, was an Australian singer born in Melbourne, Australia in 1861. She was taught to sing by mother, educated at Presbyterian Ladies’ College, married 1881 and decided to sing professionally. She visited London and Paris in 1886 and debuted in Brussels as Gilda in Verdi’s “Rigoletto” in 1887.
First diva of the century as Nellie Melba (from her home town), she demanded a pound more than Caruso at his peak for her three-octave voice. Upset that Escoffier named a dessert Peach Melba without paying royalties, she patented her name in the US. For WWI fundraising concerts she was made a Dame Commander of the Order for the British Empire in 1918. Her career took her to London’s Covent Garden and New York’s Metropolitan opera houses. She gave her name to Melba Toast, Peach Melba and Melba Sauce. Melba died 1931 from and infection following an unsuccessful face lift.
Melchoir
Lauritz Lebrecht Hommel Melchior was a tenor who born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1890. He died in 1973. Beginning as a baritone in 1913, he went on to become arguably the foremost Wagnerian tenor of the century. He sang in Bayreuth from 1924 until 1931 and regularly at the Metropolitan Opera from 1926 until 1950). In the late 1940s and early 1950s he appeared in several Hollywood movies.
Melchior was sometimes called ‘The Heroic Tenor’ or ‘The Premier Heldentenor of the 20th Century’.
Mendelssohn
Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn lived between 1809 and 1847. He is considered to be a romantic composer and pianist best known for his symphonies and concert overtures. Mendelssohn played the piano in public by the age of nine, so he was often compared to Mozart.
He composed works for solo instruments and orchestra, and German songs. Some of his better known works are the “Wedding March”, “Elijah” and “Fingal’s Cave”. Felix Mendelssohn, along with Hector Berlioz was one of the first conductors of a large orchestra.
Mendelssohn harmonized the works of other composers, including Johann Cruger.
Menotti
Menotti’s “Amahl and the Night Visitors” was the first opera ever written for television and is the most frequently performed opera in the United States. He won a Pulitzer prize for his opera, The Consul, in 1950.
Menuhin
Yehudi Menuhin made his violin debut as a child prodigy by appearing with the San Francisco Orchestra at the age of 7 in 1923. He was wearing short pants, which were then fashionable for boys his age. He later became a music statesman by promoting music as a univeral peacemaker and as a means to realize greater global understanding. He was born in New York City in 1916 but became a British citizen in 1985.
Messiaen
Olivier (Eugène Prosper Charles) Messiaen lived from 1908 until 1992. He was a composer and organist, born in Avignon, France. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where his teachers included Paul Dukas.
His 20/21 earned him a Grammy
Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer lived from 1791 until 1864. He was a German Grand opera composer. His most famous works are “Les Huguenots” and “L’Africaine”. His Hellish Waltz from Robert du Diable, transcribed by Liszt probably caused more public commotion than any other piano piece in history.
Midori
Midori (Mi Dori Goto) is a Japanese violin virtuoso who began lessons at age four.
Milhaud
arius Milhaud, 1892 to 1974, was born in the southern French city of Aix-en-Provence. Darius Milhaud was trained at the Paris Conservatoire, originally as a violinist, before turning to composition. He enjoyed a close association with the diplomat-poet Paul Claudel, whom he accompanied to Brazil as secretary, after Claudel’s appointment as Minister at the French delegation in Rio de Janeiro. On his return to Paris in 1918, after two years abroad, Milhaud was for a time in the circle of Jean Cocteau and a member of the diverse group of French composers known as Les Six. Extremely prolific as a composer in many genres, Milhaud spent the years of the 1939 war in the United States, where he taught, combining this position with a similar post at the Paris Conservatoire after 1947.
Two works in particular have proved attractive additions to repertoire. The first, Saudades do Brasil, a suite for piano, is based on music heard in Brazil during the composer’s stay there between 1916 and 1918. Scaramouche, arranged for two pianos from incidental music for Moli?re’s Le M?decin Volant, is a lively jeu d’esprit, in the spirit of the commedia dell’arte character of the title.
Darius Milhaud wrote a considerable amount of music for the theatre, operas, ballets and incidental music, as well as film and radio scores. Collaboration with Claudel brought the opera Christophe Colombe and a number of compositions of incidental music for plays ranging from those of Shakespeare to the work of contemporaries such as Brecht, Supervielle, Giraudoux and Anouilh. With Cocteau he wrote the ballets Le Boeuf sur le Toit (The Ox on the Roof) and the jazz La Cr?ation du Monde, for the Ballets n?gres. These represent only a small fraction of his dramatic work.
Milhaud was equally prolific as a composer of orchestral music of all kinds, including twelve symphonies and a variety of concertos, some of which reflect the influence of his native Provence.
Milhaud contributed widely also to the repertoire of French song both in choral settings and in songs for solo voice and piano, with texts chosen from a great variety of sources from Rabindranath Tagore and Andre Gide to the words of Pope John XXIII, the last in a choral symphony Pacem in terris.
In addition to eighteen string quartets and useful additions to duo sonata repertoire, not least for viola, an instrument used for the Quatre Visages of 1943, representations in music of four different kinds of girls, Milhaud provided for wind quintet the charming suite La cheminée du roi René and the attractive Pastorale of 1935 for oboe, clarinet and bassoon. He shows here, as elsewhere, a characteristically French adroitness in writing for woodwind instruments.
Miller
(Alton) Glenn Miller, lived from 1904 until 1944 and was born in Clarinda, Iowa. He was a trombonist who he attended the University of Colorado before joining Ben Pollack’s orchestra in Chicago in 1924. He moved to New York in 1928, where he free-lanced for the next nine years as a studio musician and worked as a sideman with a succession of bandleaders, including Red Nichols, the Dorsey Brothers, and Ray Noble. After his first band failed in 1937, he put together a second orchestra in 1938. For the next four years, with hits such as “Moonlight Serenade” and “In the Mood,” it was the most successful dance band of the period. In 1942, he joined the U.S. Air Force, for which he organized the Glenn Miller Army Air Force Band to entertain the troops. While stationed in Europe, he died on a flight from England to France in a plane that disappeared over the English Channel.
Minelli
Liza May Minnelli was born in 1946 in Los Angeles, California. She is a singer, dancer, stage and screen actress. Her parents are actress Judy Garland and director Vincente Minnelli and her half-sister is singer-actress Lorna Luft.
Minnelli was less than 3 years old when she made her screen debut in In the Good Old Summertime (1949), which co-starred her mother. She became the youngest-ever actress to win a Tony Award, for Flora, the Red Menace (1965), at age nineteen. She is the only singer in history to sell out Carnegie Hall for three weeks straight.
Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi lived from 1567 until 1643 and was considered to be a baroque composer. He was the first great composer of opera.
Monteverdi introduced the orchestral prelude, enlarged the orchestra, and improved its role by recognizing instrumental differences. His first opera “Orfeo” was performed in 1607.
Moog
Robert Moog was born in 1934. He invented the first music synthesizer in 1964.
Morley
Morton
Jelly Roll Morton, born Ferdinand Joseph La Menthe in 1885, was one of the most influential composers of the jazz era, bridging an important gap between ragtime, blues, and jazz. In a sense, he was the first great jazz composer.
His career began in New Orleans, where he began to experiment with a unique blend of blues, ragtime, Creole, and Spanish music in bordellows as a piano player. Along with being a musician, he also worked as a gambler, pool shark, vaudeville comedian, and was known for his flamboyant personality and diamond front tooth.
Morton became successful when he started making what would be some of the first jazz recordings in 1923 with “the New Orleans Rhythm Kings”. Whether he played on the West Coast, New Orleans, or in Chicago, his recordings were always very popular. He joined the group “the Red Hot Peppers” in 1924 and made several classic albums with the Victor label.
Nothing but success came to him until 1930, when “Hot Jazz” began to die out, and big bands began to take over. Morton died in 1941, claiming that a voodoo spell was the cause of his demise.
Moscheles
Ignaz Moscheles was a Bohemian composer and piano virtuoso.
Mouret
Jean Joseph Mouret’s Rondeau was the theme for many years of TV’s Masterpiece Theater Mouret wrote his music in Paris in the early 1700’s
Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Theophilus Mozart lived between 1756 and 1791. He is considered to be a classical composer. Mozart, born in Salzburg, Austria, began composing before most children go to kindergarten. By the time he was six he had played the piano and violin in public.
A Wunderkind, a prodigy of the first rank before the age of five, Mozart astounded the musical world with compositions of unsurpassed brilliance. His father Leopold had recognized his talent at the age of three and immediately set out to teach him to play the harpsichord, violin, and organ. Mozart and his sister made their debut in Munich when he was just six and traveled about Europe together, performing at courts and before royalty, always with success. While still a little child Mozart was inventing symphonies, sonatas, and his first opera. Legends abound about how Mozart could hear an entire work in his head and write everything down without making even one change.
As a child performer he was often treated as a freak. People would cover his hands as he played the piano, make him compose tunes on the spot and perform all sorts of other musical tricks.
In 1787 Mozart became court composer to Joseph II. He played for royalty, received commissions from aristocrats and in his short lifetime composed nearly a thousand masterpieces, including symphonies, operas, serenades, sonatas, concertos, masses, vocal works, and church works.
Mozart was a prolific composer writing masterpieces using every form of music, including his operas “The Marriage of Figaro” (based on a play by Pierre Beaumarchais), “Don Giovanni”, “Cosi fan tutte” and “The Magic Flute”. His mastery of instrumental and vocal forms, from symphony to concerto and opera, was unrivalled in his own time and perhaps in any other.
Composing the Requiem Mass commissioned for Count Walsegg, he felt he was writing his own requiem and he died before it was finished.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, composer, died in Vienna Austria at the age of 35, penniless, on December 5th, 1791, of malignant typhus. Mozart, the precocious child prodigy, composed several pieces that are deemed central to the classical era. Though he ranked as one of the greatest musical genius, he did not live a life of affluence as none of his compositions earned him a decent commission but the world is forever enriched by such works as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, the Symphonies No. 38 through 41 and the Coronation Mass. In the year 2000, there have been some new discoveries about Mozart’s death.
Munch
Charles Munch was a French composer who lived from 1891 until 1968. He was born in Strasbourg, France. After a long career as a violinist, he made his conducting debut in Paris in 1932 and three years later organized his own orchestra there. He became conductor of the Boston Symphony in 1949 and stayed until 1962. In the latter year he organized the Orchestre de Paris; he died on tour with that group in Virginia. Munch was known for allowing his players room to express themselves, producing warm and musical performances.
Mussorgsky
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky lived from 1839 until 1881. This Russian composer, born in Karevo, Russia, was educated for the army, but resigned his commission in 1858 and began the serious study of music under Balakirev.
He is most known for his dramatic opera Boris Godunov, first performed in St Petersburg in 1874. In this opera, he emphasized that speech is made more poignant by the accompanying music.
His piano suite Pictures from an Exhibition (1874) has also kept a firm place in the concert repertoire. Other operas and large-scale works remained uncompleted as the composer sank into the chronic alcoholism which hastened his early death. His friend Rimsky-Korsakov undertook the task of musical executor, arranged or completed many of his unfinished works, and rearranged some of the finished ones.
Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain was featured in the Walt Disney movie Fantasia.
Mutter
Anne-Sophie Mutter’s remarkable career began at the age of 13 when she appeared as soloist with Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic at the 1977 Salzburg Whitsun Festival. Since then she has been in demand as both a soloist and chamber music partner in major music centers throughout Europe, the Americas and Asia.
Her long list of honors for recordings includes the Grand Prix du Disque, the Grammy Award in the United States, and Holland’s Edison Award. Her most recent releases have been “The Berlin Recital” with pianist Lambert Orkis and live recordings of Brahms’ Violin Concerto and Schumann’s “Fantasy” with the New York Philharmonic and Kurt Masur. Her recording of Penderecki’s Violin Concerto No. 2 with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by the composer (coupled with Bartok’s Violin Sonata No. 2) was released in early 1998. All of Beethoven’s sonatas will be recorded live during her worldwide tour and released by the autumn of 1998.
An ardent champion of contemporary music, Miss Mutter has given premiere performances of several works written especially for her by composers such as Witold Lutoslawski, Norbert Moret, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm and Sebastian Currier. Over the next few years she will participate in premiere performances of works by contemporary composers whom she especially admires.
In 1987 Miss Mutter established the Rudolf Eberle Endowment which supports talented young string musicians throughout Europe. This endowment was recently incorporated into the Munich-based Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation and Friends Circle which share the same objective.
Miss Mutter has a strong commitment to social and health problems of our time. She supports work in these fields through regular benefit concerts. The proceeds from one of her three Beethoven evenings in Munich will go to the Christiane-Herzog-Stiftung for sufferers of cystic fibrosis. In the same year she will perform a benefit concert for the German Red Cross with the proceeds going to an orphanage in Romania. In Philadelphia a concert for Temple University’s Esther Boyer College of Music will take place.
She is a holder of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
. 1669 ~ Miquel Lopez, composer, born. He died sometime in 1723
. 1671 ~ Francesco Stradivari, Italian violin maker
. 1862 ~ The Battle Hymn of the Republic was first published in “Atlantic Monthly”. The lyric was the work of Julia Ward Howe. The Battle Hymn of the Republic is still being sung and to the tune of a song titled John Brown’s Body.
. 1869 ~ Victor Herbert, Composer, cellist and conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony. He composed operettas such as Babes in Toyland, Naughty Marietta and songs like Ah Sweet Mystery of Life (At Last I’ve Found You)
. 1877 ~ Thomas Frederick Dunhill, English composer and writer on musical subjects
. 1894 ~ James P. Johnson, American pianist and composer (Charleston), born in New Brunswick, New Jersey
. 1904 ~ Enrico Caruso recorded his first sides for Victor Records. He did ten songs in the session and was paid only $4,000.
. 1937 ~ Don Everly born, Singer with his brother, Phil, in The Everly Brothers. Some of their hits were: Wake Up Little Susie, Bye Bye Love, Cathy’s Clown and All I Have To Do Is Dream
. 1937 ~ Ray Sawyer, Singer with Dr. Hook and The Medicine Show
. 1939 ~ Benny Goodman and his orchestra recorded And the Angels Sing on Victor Records. The vocalist on that number, who went on to find considerable fame at Capitol Records, was Martha Tilton.
. 1940 ~ Frank Sinatra sang Too Romantic and The Sky Fell Down in his first recording session with the Tommy Dorsey Band. The session was in Chicago, IL. Frankie replaced Jack Leonard as lead singer with the band.
. 1941 ~ “Downbeat” magazine reported this day that Glenn Miller had inked a new three-year contract with RCA Victor Records. The pact guaranteed Miller $750 a side, the fattest record contract signed to that time.
. 1949 ~ RCA Victor countered Columbia Records’ 33-1/3 long play phonograph disk with not only a smaller, 7-inch record (with a big hole in the center), but an entire phonograph playing system as well. The newfangled product, the 45- rpm, which started a revolution (especially with the new rock and roll music), soon made the 78-rpm record a blast from the past.
. 1952 ~ Rick James (James Johnson), Singer
. 1954 ~ Mike Campbell, Guitarist with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
. 1968 ~ Elvis Presley celebrated the birth of his daughter, Lisa Marie. Lisa Marie married and divorced the ‘Gloved One’, Michael Jackson, in the ’90s.
. 1971 ~ The soundtrack album from the movie, “Love Story”, starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw, with music by Frances Lai, was certified as a gold record on this day.
. 1995 ~ Richey Edwards, guitarist with the Manic Street Preachers, vanished leaving no clues to his whereabouts. He left The Embassy Hotel in London at 7am, leaving behind his packed suitcase. His car was found on the Severn Bridge outside Bristol, England sixteen days later. Edwards has never been found, despite constant searching, and in November 2008 he was declared officially dead.
. 2002 ~ Hildegard Knef, a smoky-voiced actress and singer who starred in Germany’s first post-World War II movie and scandalized church officials with a 1951 nude scene, died of a lung infection at a Berlin hospital. She was 76. Knef became a star for her role as a former concentration camp inmate returning home in Wolfgang Staudte’s 1946 “Murderers Are Among Us.” Knef, who sometimes went as Hildegard Neff in the United States, appeared in more than 50 films, most of them made in Europe. She reportedly turned down a Hollywood studio contract after being told she would have to change her name and say she was Austrian, not German. She scandalized Roman Catholic authorities with a brief nude scene in the 1951 German film “The Story Of A Sinner.” Her work in the United States included the role of Ninotchka in Cole Porter’s Broadway musical “Silk Stockings” in the 1950s, and a supporting role in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” She launched a career as a singer in the 1960s and wrote a best-selling 1970 autobiography. She continued to act and sing almost until the end of her life, appearing as herself in the 2000 documentary “Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song” and in the 1999 German comedy, “An Almost Perfect Wedding.”
. 2003 ~ Latin jazz musician Ramon “Mongo” Santamaria, a Cuban-born percussionist and bandleader known for his conga rhythms, died in Miami at age 85. He was best known for his 1963 recording of Herbie Hancock’s song Watermelon Man, which became his first Top 10 hit. In 1959, Santamaria penned Afro Blue, which quickly became a jazz standard covered by stars such as Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie. Born in Havana, Santamaria performed at Havana’s famed Tropicana Club before moving to New York City in the early 1950s, touring with the Mambo Kings and performing with Tito Puente and Cal Tjader. Santamaria recorded scores of albums in a career that spanned nearly 40 years, mixing rhythm and blues with jazz and hip-swaying conga. In 1977 he was awarded a Grammy for Best Latin Recording for his album “Amancer.” In recent years, he divided his time between Manhattan and Miami.
. 2018 ~ Alan Stout, American composer, died at the age of 85
. 2018 ~ Dennis Edwards, who joined the Temptations in 1968 and sang on a string of the group’s hits including “I Can’t Get Next to You,” “Ball of Confusion” and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” in an initial tenure that stretched to 1977, died at the age of 74
• 1766 ~ Rodolphe Kreutzer, French violinist, teacher and composer. In 1810 a broken arm ended his virtuoso career. Beethoven dedicated sonata op 47 to him.
• 1905 ~ Mantovani, Orchestra leader, (1953 UK No.1 single ‘Moulin Rouge’, 1957 US No. 12 single ‘Around The World In Eighty Days’) was born. He died on 30th March 1980.
• 1914 ~ Jorge Bolet, Cuban-born American pianist was born
• 1926 ~ NBC broadcast its first music program. It featured the New York Symphony Orchestra and many distinguished soloists. 24 stations carried the first broadcast. The program was a gala 4½-hour broadcast from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Two remote pickups were also on the program. Opera star Mary Garden sang from Chicago and Will Rogers presented a humorous monologue from Independence, Kansas. Charles Lindbergh was among the luminaries who attended the broadcast.
• 1928 ~ C.W. McCall (William Fries), Singer, songwriter was born
• 1932 ~ Petula Clark, British pop singer (Downtown, My Love) was born
• 1933 ~ Clyde (Lensley) McPhatter, Singer with the Dominoes was born
• 1937 ~ Little Willie John (William Edward John), Singer, convicted of manslaughter
• 1942 ~ Daniel Barenboim, Argentine-born Israeli pianist and conductor of English Chamber Orchestra was born. “He’s not a pianist who conducts, or a conductor who plays the piano: he’s a total musician.” – Lang Lang
• 1945 ~ Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Singer with Abba was born
• 1946 ~ Janet Lennon, Singer with The Lennon Sisters was born
• 1954 ~ Tony Thompson, Drummer with Chic; played with Led Zeppelin, Live Aid, drummer with Patti LaBelle was born
• 1954 ~ Studio One on CBS-TV featured Joan Weber singing Let Me Go, Lover. The song had enjoyed limited popularity before the TV show, but skyrocketed to fame immediately after.
• 1956 ~ Love Me Tender, the first Elvis Presley film, premiered.
.1963 ~ Fritz Reiner died at the age of 74. He was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century. Hungarian born and trained, he emigrated to the United States in 1922, where he rose to prominence as a conductor with several orchestras. He reached the pinnacle of his career while music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the 1950s and early 1960s.
• 1967 ~ Mari Fernandez, Singer with Sweet Sensation was born
• 1969 ~ The first album featuring Karen and Richard Carpenter was released by A&M Records. The offering would not be a big seller, but a single from the disc, a remake of The Beatles’Ticket to Ride, would gain national attention. Their next album, however, would establish them as major international stars (Close to You).
• 1969 ~ Janis Joplin was arrested during a gig in Tampa, Florida, after badmouthing a policeman and using vulgar and indecent language. Joplin became upset after police moved into the hall forcing fans to move back to their seats. As the singer left the stage she confronted a detective calling him ‘a son of a bitch’ and told him she would kick his face in. She was released on $504 bail.
• 1974 ~ The most expensive 2-record album was released on Casablanca Records. It was a comedy disc titled, Here’s Johnny – Magic Moments from the Tonight Show.
• 1974 ~ The group, Faces, released their tune with the longest title. You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything (Even Take the Dog for a Walk, Mend a Fuse, Fold Away the Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings).
• 1980 ~ After years of success on the music charts with the New Christy Minstrels and the First Edition, Kenny Rogers got his first #1 song. Lady, written by Lionel Richie, stayed at the top for six weeks.
• 1986 ~ The first major operetta written by Gian Carlo Menotti in over 20 years was presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Starring tenor Placido Domingo, Goya was said by critics to be only “intermittently good.”
• 2003 ~ David Holt, a former child actor once touted by Paramount Pictures as its answer to Shirley Temple, has died. He was 76. Holt, who later became a successful jazz musician and songwriter, died of congestive heart failure. Although his career never rivaled Temple’s, Holt had his share of success as a child actor, playing Elizabeth Taylor’s older brother in “Courage of Lassie” in 1946 and appearing as bratty Sidney Sawyer in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” in 1938. He also played the crippled boy for whom New York Yankee great Lou Gehrig hit a home run in “Pride of the Yankees” and appeared in “The Big Broadcast of 1936.” Paramount signed Holt to a long-term contract after his 1934 role as a boy whose mother dies in “You Belong To me.” Holt eventually segued into music. He co-wrote the song The Christmas Blues with Sammy Cahn and wrote the music for numerous jazz albums. He hosted the TV show “American Music Shop” in the 1990s.
• 2018 ~ Roy Clark, American singer and musician beloved by generations of fans for his work on the TV show Hee Haw died at the age of 85.
. 1669 ~ Miquel Lopez, composer, born. He died sometime in 1723
. 1671 ~ Francesco Stradivari, Italian violin maker
. 1862 ~ The Battle Hymn of the Republic was first published in “Atlantic Monthly”. The lyric was the work of Julia Ward Howe. The Battle Hymn of the Republic is still being sung and to the tune of a song titled John Brown’s Body.
. 1869 ~ Victor Herbert, Composer, cellist and conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony. He composed operettas such as Babes in Toyland, Naughty Marietta and songs like Ah Sweet Mystery of Life (At Last I’ve Found You)
. 1877 ~ Thomas Frederick Dunhill, English composer and writer on musical subjects
. 1894 ~ James P. Johnson, American pianist and composer (Charleston), born in New Brunswick, New Jersey
. 1904 ~ Enrico Caruso recorded his first sides for Victor Records. He did ten songs in the session and was paid only $4,000.
. 1937 ~ Don Everly born, Singer with his brother, Phil, in The Everly Brothers. Some of their hits were: Wake Up Little Susie, Bye Bye Love, Cathy’s Clown and All I Have To Do Is Dream
. 1937 ~ Ray Sawyer, Singer with Dr. Hook and The Medicine Show
. 1939 ~ Benny Goodman and his orchestra recorded And the Angels Sing on Victor Records. The vocalist on that number, who went on to find considerable fame at Capitol Records, was Martha Tilton.
. 1940 ~ Frank Sinatra sang Too Romantic and The Sky Fell Down in his first recording session with the Tommy Dorsey Band. The session was in Chicago, IL. Frankie replaced Jack Leonard as lead singer with the band.
. 1941 ~ “Downbeat” magazine reported this day that Glenn Miller had inked a new three-year contract with RCA Victor Records. The pact guaranteed Miller $750 a side, the fattest record contract signed to that time.
. 1949 ~ RCA Victor countered Columbia Records’ 33-1/3 long play phonograph disk with not only a smaller, 7-inch record (with a big hole in the center), but an entire phonograph playing system as well. The newfangled product, the 45- rpm, which started a revolution (especially with the new rock and roll music), soon made the 78-rpm record a blast from the past.
. 1952 ~ Rick James (James Johnson), Singer
. 1954 ~ Mike Campbell, Guitarist with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
. 1968 ~ Elvis Presley celebrated the birth of his daughter, Lisa Marie. Lisa Marie married and divorced the ‘Gloved One’, Michael Jackson, in the ’90s.
. 1971 ~ The soundtrack album from the movie, “Love Story”, starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw, with music by Frances Lai, was certified as a gold record on this day.
. 1995 ~ Richey Edwards, guitarist with the Manic Street Preachers, vanished leaving no clues to his whereabouts. He left The Embassy Hotel in London at 7am, leaving behind his packed suitcase. His car was found on the Severn Bridge outside Bristol, England sixteen days later. Edwards has never been found, despite constant searching, and in November 2008 he was declared officially dead.
. 2002 ~ Hildegard Knef, a smoky-voiced actress and singer who starred in Germany’s first post-World War II movie and scandalized church officials with a 1951 nude scene, died of a lung infection at a Berlin hospital. She was 76. Knef became a star for her role as a former concentration camp inmate returning home in Wolfgang Staudte’s 1946 “Murderers Are Among Us.” Knef, who sometimes went as Hildegard Neff in the United States, appeared in more than 50 films, most of them made in Europe. She reportedly turned down a Hollywood studio contract after being told she would have to change her name and say she was Austrian, not German. She scandalized Roman Catholic authorities with a brief nude scene in the 1951 German film “The Story Of A Sinner.” Her work in the United States included the role of Ninotchka in Cole Porter’s Broadway musical “Silk Stockings” in the 1950s, and a supporting role in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” She launched a career as a singer in the 1960s and wrote a best-selling 1970 autobiography. She continued to act and sing almost until the end of her life, appearing as herself in the 2000 documentary “Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song” and in the 1999 German comedy, “An Almost Perfect Wedding.”
. 2003 ~ Latin jazz musician Ramon “Mongo” Santamaria, a Cuban-born percussionist and bandleader known for his conga rhythms, died in Miami at age 85. He was best known for his 1963 recording of Herbie Hancock’s song Watermelon Man, which became his first Top 10 hit. In 1959, Santamaria penned Afro Blue, which quickly became a jazz standard covered by stars such as Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie. Born in Havana, Santamaria performed at Havana’s famed Tropicana Club before moving to New York City in the early 1950s, touring with the Mambo Kings and performing with Tito Puente and Cal Tjader. Santamaria recorded scores of albums in a career that spanned nearly 40 years, mixing rhythm and blues with jazz and hip-swaying conga. In 1977 he was awarded a Grammy for Best Latin Recording for his album “Amancer.” In recent years, he divided his time between Manhattan and Miami.
. 2018 ~ Alan Stout, American composer, died at the age of 85
. 2018 ~ Dennis Edwards, who joined the Temptations in 1968 and sang on a string of the group’s hits including “I Can’t Get Next to You,” “Ball of Confusion” and “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” in an initial tenure that stretched to 1977, died at the age of 74
• 1766 ~ Rodolphe Kreutzer, French violinist, teacher and composer. In 1810 a broken arm ended his virtuoso career. Beethoven dedicated sonata op 47 to him.
• 1905 ~ Mantovani, Orchestra leader, (1953 UK No.1 single ‘Moulin Rouge’, 1957 US No. 12 single ‘Around The World In Eighty Days’) was born. He died on 30th March 1980.
• 1914 ~ Jorge Bolet, Cuban-born American pianist was born
• 1926 ~ NBC broadcast its first music program. It featured the New York Symphony Orchestra and many distinguished soloists. 24 stations carried the first broadcast. The program was a gala 4½-hour broadcast from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Two remote pickups were also on the program. Opera star Mary Garden sang from Chicago and Will Rogers presented a humorous monologue from Independence, Kansas. Charles Lindbergh was among the luminaries who attended the broadcast.
• 1928 ~ C.W. McCall (William Fries), Singer, songwriter was born
• 1932 ~ Petula Clark, British pop singer (Downtown, My Love) was born
• 1933 ~ Clyde (Lensley) McPhatter, Singer with the Dominoes was born
• 1937 ~ Little Willie John (William Edward John), Singer, convicted of manslaughter
• 1942 ~ Daniel Barenboim, Argentine-born Israeli pianist and conductor of English Chamber Orchestra was born. “He’s not a pianist who conducts, or a conductor who plays the piano: he’s a total musician.” – Lang Lang
• 1945 ~ Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Singer with Abba was born
• 1946 ~ Janet Lennon, Singer with The Lennon Sisters was born
• 1954 ~ Tony Thompson, Drummer with Chic; played with Led Zeppelin, Live Aid, drummer with Patti LaBelle was born
• 1954 ~ Studio One on CBS-TV featured Joan Weber singing Let Me Go, Lover. The song had enjoyed limited popularity before the TV show, but skyrocketed to fame immediately after.
• 1956 ~ Love Me Tender, the first Elvis Presley film, premiered.
.1963 ~ Fritz Reiner died at the age of 74. He was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century. Hungarian born and trained, he emigrated to the United States in 1922, where he rose to prominence as a conductor with several orchestras. He reached the pinnacle of his career while music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in the 1950s and early 1960s.
• 1967 ~ Mari Fernandez, Singer with Sweet Sensation was born
• 1969 ~ The first album featuring Karen and Richard Carpenter was released by A&M Records. The offering would not be a big seller, but a single from the disc, a remake of The Beatles’Ticket to Ride, would gain national attention. Their next album, however, would establish them as major international stars (Close to You).
• 1969 ~ Janis Joplin was arrested during a gig in Tampa, Florida, after badmouthing a policeman and using vulgar and indecent language. Joplin became upset after police moved into the hall forcing fans to move back to their seats. As the singer left the stage she confronted a detective calling him ‘a son of a bitch’ and told him she would kick his face in. She was released on $504 bail.
• 1974 ~ The most expensive 2-record album was released on Casablanca Records. It was a comedy disc titled, Here’s Johnny – Magic Moments from the Tonight Show.
• 1974 ~ The group, Faces, released their tune with the longest title. You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything (Even Take the Dog for a Walk, Mend a Fuse, Fold Away the Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings).
• 1980 ~ After years of success on the music charts with the New Christy Minstrels and the First Edition, Kenny Rogers got his first #1 song. Lady, written by Lionel Richie, stayed at the top for six weeks.
• 1986 ~ The first major operetta written by Gian Carlo Menotti in over 20 years was presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Starring tenor Placido Domingo, Goya was said by critics to be only “intermittently good.”
• 2003 ~ David Holt, a former child actor once touted by Paramount Pictures as its answer to Shirley Temple, has died. He was 76. Holt, who later became a successful jazz musician and songwriter, died of congestive heart failure. Although his career never rivaled Temple’s, Holt had his share of success as a child actor, playing Elizabeth Taylor’s older brother in “Courage of Lassie” in 1946 and appearing as bratty Sidney Sawyer in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” in 1938. He also played the crippled boy for whom New York Yankee great Lou Gehrig hit a home run in “Pride of the Yankees” and appeared in “The Big Broadcast of 1936.” Paramount signed Holt to a long-term contract after his 1934 role as a boy whose mother dies in “You Belong To me.” Holt eventually segued into music. He co-wrote the song The Christmas Blues with Sammy Cahn and wrote the music for numerous jazz albums. He hosted the TV show “American Music Shop” in the 1990s.
• 2018 ~ Roy Clark, American singer and musician beloved by generations of fans for his work on the TV show Hee Haw died at the age of 85.
. 1669 ~ Miquel Lopez, composer, born. He died sometime in 1723
. 1671 ~ Francesco Stradivari, Italian violin maker
. 1862 ~ The Battle Hymn of the Republic was first published in “Atlantic Monthly”. The lyric was the work of Julia Ward Howe. The Battle Hymn of the Republic is still being sung and to the tune of a song titled John Brown’s Body.
. 1869 ~ Victor Herbert, Composer, cellist and conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony. He composed operettas such as Babes in Toyland, Naughty Marietta and songs like Ah Sweet Mystery of Life (At Last I’ve Found You)
. 1937 ~ Don Everly born, Singer with his brother, Phil, in The Everly Brothers. Some of their hits were: Wake Up Little Susie, Bye Bye Love, Cathy’s Clown and All I Have To Do Is Dream
. 1937 ~ Ray Sawyer, Singer with Dr. Hook and The Medicine Show
. 1939 ~ Benny Goodman and his orchestra recorded And the Angels Sing on Victor Records. The vocalist on that number, who went on to find considerable fame at Capitol Records, was Martha Tilton.
. 1940 ~ Frank Sinatra sang Too Romantic and The Sky Fell Down in his first recording session with the Tommy Dorsey Band. The session was in Chicago, IL. Frankie replaced Jack Leonard as lead singer with the band.
. 1941 ~ “Downbeat” magazine reported this day that Glenn Miller had inked a new three-year contract with RCA Victor Records. The pact guaranteed Miller $750 a side, the fattest record contract signed to that time.
. 1949 ~ RCA Victor countered Columbia Records’ 33-1/3 long play phonograph disk with not only a smaller, 7-inch record (with a big hole in the center), but an entire phonograph playing system as well. The newfangled product, the 45- rpm, which started a revolution (especially with the new rock and roll music), soon made the 78-rpm record a blast from the past.
. 1952 ~ Rick James (James Johnson), Singer
. 1954 ~ Mike Campbell, Guitarist with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
. 1968 ~ Elvis Presley celebrated the birth of his daughter, Lisa Marie. Lisa Marie married and divorced the ‘Gloved One’, Michael Jackson, in the ’90s.
. 1971 ~ The soundtrack album from the movie, “Love Story”, starring Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw, with music by Frances Lai, was certified as a gold record on this day.
. 1995 ~ Richey Edwards, guitarist with the Manic Street Preachers, vanished leaving no clues to his whereabouts. He left The Embassy Hotel in London at 7am, leaving behind his packed suitcase. His car was found on the Severn Bridge outside Bristol, England sixteen days later. Edwards has never been found, despite constant searching, and in November 2008 he was declared officially dead.
. 2002 ~ Hildegard Knef, a smoky voiced actress and singer who starred in Germany’s first post-World War II movie and scandalized church officials with a 1951 nude scene, died of a lung infection at a Berlin hospital. She was 76. Knef became a star for her role as a former concentration camp inmate returning home in Wolfgang Staudte’s 1946 “Murderers Are Among Us.” Knef, who sometimes went as Hildegrad Neff in the United States, appeared in more than 50 films, most of them made in Europe. She reportedly turned down a Hollywood studio contract after being told she would have to change her name and say she was Austrian, not German. She scandalized Roman Catholic authorities with a brief nude scene in the 1951 German film “The Story Of A Sinner.” Her work in the United States included the role of Ninotchka in Cole Porter’s Broadway musical “Silk Stockings” in the 1950s, and a supporting role in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” She launched a career as a singer in the 1960s and wrote a best-selling 1970 autobiography. She continued to act and sing almost until the end of her life, appearing as herself in the 2000 documentary “Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song” and in the 1999 German comedy, “An Almost Perfect Wedding.”
. 2003 ~ Latin jazz musician Ramon “Mongo” Santamaria, a Cuban-born percussionist and bandleader known for his conga rhythms, died in Miami at age 85. He was best known for his 1963 recording of Herbie Hancock’s song Watermelon Man, which became his first Top 10 hit. In 1959, Santamaria penned Afro Blue, which quickly became a jazz standard covered by stars such as Count Basie and Dizzy Gillespie. Born in Havana, Santamaria performed at Havana’s famed Tropicana Club before moving to New York City in the early 1950s, touring with the Mambo Kings and performing with Tito Puente and Cal Tjader. Santamaria recorded scores of albums in a career that spanned nearly 40 years, mixing rhythm and blues with jazz and hip-swaying conga. In 1977 he was awarded a Grammy for Best Latin Recording for his album “Amancer.” In recent years, he divided his time between Manhattan and Miami.
• 1766 ~ Birth of French violinist, teacher and composer Rodolphe Kreutzer in Versailles. In 1810 broken arm ended virtuoso career. Beethoven dedicated sonata op 47 to him. d-Geneva, 6 JAN 1831.
• 1905 ~ Mantovani, Orchestra leader, (1953 UK No.1 single ‘Moulin Rouge’, 1957 US No. 12 single ‘Around The World In Eighty Days’) was born. He died on 30th March 1980.
• 1914 ~ Jorge Bolet, Cuban-born American pianist was born
• 1926 ~ NBC broadcast its first music program. It featured the New York Symphony Orchestra and many distinguished soloists. 24 stations carried the first broadcast. The program was a gala 4½-hour broadcast from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Two remote pickups were also on the program. Opera star Mary Garden sang from Chicago and Will Rogers presented a humorous monologue from Independence, Kansas. Charles Lindbergh was among the luminaries who attended the broadcast.
• 1928 ~ C.W. McCall (William Fries), Singer, songwriter was born
• 1932 ~ Petula Clark, British pop singer (Downtown, My Love) was born
• 1954 ~ Studio One on CBS-TV featured Joan Weber singing Let Me Go, Lover. The song had enjoyed limited popularity before the TV show, but skyrocketed to fame immediately after.
• 1956 ~ Love Me Tender, the first Elvis Presley film, premiered.
• 1967 ~ Mari Fernandez, Singer with Sweet Sensation was born
• 1969 ~ The first album featuring Karen and Richard Carpenter was released by A&M Records. Offering would not be a big seller, but a single from the disc, a remake of The Beatles’Ticket to Ride, would gain national attention. Their next album, however, would establish them as major international stars (Close to You).
• 1969 ~ Janis Joplin was arrested during a gig in Tampa, Florida, after badmouthing a policeman and using vulgar and indecent language. Joplin became upset after police moved into the hall forcing fans to move back to their seats. As the singer left the stage she confronted a detective calling him ‘a son of a bitch’ and told him she would kick his face in. She was released on $504 bail.
• 1974 ~ The most expensive 2-record album was released-on Casablanca Records. It was a comedy disc titled, Here’s Johnny – Magic Moments from the Tonight Show.
• 1974 ~ The group, Faces, released their tune with the longest title. You Can Make Me Dance, Sing or Anything (Even Take the Dog for a Walk, Mend a Fuse, Fold Away the Ironing Board, Or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings).
• 1980 ~ After years of success on the music charts with the New Christy Minstrels and the First Edition, Kenny Rogers got his first #1 song. Lady, written by LionelRichie, stayed at the top for six weeks.
• 1986 ~ The first major operetta written by Gian Carlo Menotti in over 20 years was presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Starring tenor Placido Domingo, Goya was said by critics to be only “intermittently good.”
• 2003 ~ David Holt, a former child actor once touted by Paramount Pictures as its answer to Shirley Temple, has died. He was 76. Holt, who later became a successful jazz musician and songwriter, died of congestive heart failure. Although his career never rivaled Temple’s, Holt had his share of success as a child actor, playing Elizabeth Taylor’s older brother in “Courage of Lassie” in 1946 and appearing as bratty Sidney Sawyer in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” in 1938. He also played the crippled boy for whom New York Yankee great Lou Gehrig hit a home run in “Pride of the Yankees” and appeared in “The Big Broadcast of 1936.” Paramount signed Holt to a long-term contract after his 1934 role as a boy whose mother dies in “You Belong To me.” Holt eventually segued into music. He co-wrote the song The Christmas Blues with Sammy Cahn and wrote the music for numerous jazz albums. He hosted the TV show “American Music Shop” in the 1990s.
• 1766 ~ Birth of French violinist, teacher and composer Rodolphe Kreutzer in Versailles. In 1810 broken arm ended virtuoso career. Beethoven dedicated sonata op 47 to him. d-Geneva, 6 JAN 1831.
• 1905 ~ Mantovani, Orchestra leader, (1953 UK No.1 single ‘Moulin Rouge’, 1957 US No. 12 single ‘Around The World In Eighty Days’) was born. He died on 30th March 1980.
• 1914 ~ Jorge Bolet, Cuban-born American pianist was born
• 1926 ~ NBC broadcast its first music program. It featured the New York SymphonyOrchestra and many distinguished soloists. 24 stations carried the first broadcast. The program was a gala 4½-hour broadcast from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. Two remote pickups were also on the program. Opera star Mary Garden sang from Chicago and Will Rogers presented a humorous monologue from Independence, Kansas. Charles Lindbergh was among the luminaries who attended the broadcast.
• 1928 ~ C.W. McCall (William Fries), Singer, songwriter was born
• 1932 ~ Petula Clark, British pop singer (Downtown, My Love) was born
• 1954 ~ Studio One on CBS-TV featured Joan Weber singing Let Me Go, Lover. The song had enjoyed limited popularity before the TV show, but skyrocketed to fame immediately after.
• 1956 ~ Love Me Tender, the first Elvis Presley film, premiered.
• 1967 ~ Mari Fernandez, Singer with Sweet Sensation was born
• 1969 ~ The first album featuring Karen and Richard Carpenter was released by A&M Records. Offering would not be a big seller, but a single from the disc, a remake of The Beatles’Ticket to Ride, would gain national attention. Their next album, however, would establish them as major international stars (Close to You).
• 1969 ~ Janis Joplin was arrested during a gig in Tampa, Florida, after badmouthing a policeman and using vulgar and indecent language. Joplin became upset after police moved into the hall forcing fans to move back to their seats. As the singer left the stage she confronted a detective calling him ‘a son of a bitch’ and told him she would kick his face in. She was released on $504 bail.
• 1974 ~ The most expensive 2-record album was released-on Casablanca Records. It was a comedy disc titled, Here’s Johnny – Magic Moments from the Tonight Show.
• 1974 ~ The group, Faces, released their tune with the longest title. You Can Make MeDance, Sing or Anything (Even Take the Dog for a Walk, Mend a Fuse, Fold Away theIroning Board, Or Any Other Domestic Shortcomings).
• 1980 ~ After years of success on the music charts with the New Christy Minstrels and the First Edition, Kenny Rogers got his first #1 song. Lady, written by LionelRichie, stayed at the top for six weeks.
• 1986 ~ The first major operetta written by Gian Carlo Menotti in over 20 years was presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Starring tenor PlacidoDomingo, Goya was said by critics to be only “intermittently good.”
• 2003 ~ David Holt, a former child actor once touted by Paramount Pictures as its answer to Shirley Temple, has died. He was 76. Holt, who later became a successful jazz musician and songwriter, died of congestive heart failure. Although his career never rivaled Temple’s, Holt had his share of success as a child actor, playing Elizabeth Taylor’solder brother in “Courage of Lassie” in 1946 and appearing as bratty Sidney Sawyer in “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” in 1938. He also played the crippled boy for whom New York Yankee great Lou Gehrig hit a home run in “Pride of the Yankees” and appeared in “The Big Broadcast of 1936.” Paramount signed Holt to a long-term contract after his 1934 role as a boy whose mother dies in “You Belong To me.” Holt eventually segued into music. He co-wrote the song The ChristmasBlues with Sammy Cahn and wrote the music for numerous jazz albums. He hosted the TV show “American Music Shop” in the 1990s.
MaryO'Studio 