. 1897 Milton J. Cross, American TV announcer. He was best known as the voice of the Metropolitan Opera, hosting its Saturday afternoon radio broadcasts for 43 years, from the time of their inception on December 25, 1931 until his death in 1975.
. 1919 ~ Merce Cunningham, Dancer, choreographer
. 1923 ~ Bennie Green, Trombonist, lyricist
1924 ~ Henry Mancini, American arranger, composer, conductor and pianist
More information about Mancini
. 1939 ~ Dusty Springfield (Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien), Singer, inducted into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 15, 1999
. 1944 ~ Dennis Russell Davies, American conductor
. 1947 ~ Gerry Rafferty, Singer, songwriter
. 1949 ~ Bill Spooner, Musician, guitarist with The Tubes
. 1963 ~ Jimmy Osmond, Singer with The Osmonds, he is the youngest Osmond
. 1973 ~ Former Beatle, Paul McCartney, leading the group, Wings, starred in his first TV special titled, James Paul McCartney. The show featured the new group, including Paul’s wife, Linda on keyboards and backing vocals.
. 1996 ~ Lucille Bremer, American actress and dancer (Meet Me in St. Louis, Ziegfeld Follies), died at the age of 79
. 2001 ~ Walter Stanton, who invented an easily replaceable phonograph stylus that helped create a consumer market for audio equipment, died at the age of 86. Stanton invented the slide-in stylus in the 1940s. The design enabled users to replace a needle assembly by themselves instead of having to send it back to the factory when it wore out. The invention became one of the basics in phonograph cartridge design. He also prodded major manufacturers to arrive at a standard mounting system for cartridges and the type of recording on records, that enabled record players and styluses to be sold separately. He also helped found the Institute of High Fidelity, whose annual trade shows in New York attracted thousands of gadget lovers.
. 1759 ~ George Frideric Handel, organist, violinist and composer, died. Among his best-known oratorios are “Saul,” “Israel in Egypt” and the “Messiah”.
. 1900 ~ Salvatore Baccaloni, Opera singer
. 1922 ~ Soprano Jeanette Vreeland sang the first radio concert from an airplane as she flew over New York City.
. 1922 ~ Ali Akbar Khan, Indian composer and maestro sarod player
. 1933 ~ Morton Subotnick, American composer of experimental music
. 1935 ~ Loretta Lynn, American country music singer, songwriter and guitarist, first woman to earn the CMA’s Entertainer of the Year award; named ACM Artist of the Decade in 1979
. 1941 ~ Hildegarde recorded the standard Darling Je Vous Aime Beaucoup on Decca Records. Hildegarde was the elegant singer with the long white gloves who was accompanied by the Harry Sosnik Orchestra. It took another 14 years, but Nat ‘King’ Cole turned the song into an even bigger hit, landing at number 7 on the pop music charts.
. 1951 ~ Julian Lloyd Webber, British cellist
. 1958 ~ Pianist Van Cliburn was presented on national TV for the first time on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jack Paar.
. 1958 ~ Laurie London reached the top spot on the music charts with He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, knocking Perry Como’sCatch a Falling Star down a peg or two.
. 1960 ~ The musical Bye Bye Birdie opened at the Martin Beck Theatre in New York City. Chita Rivera and Dick Van Dyke starred in the Broadway show which ran for 607 performances.
. 1967 ~ Herman’s Hermits, featuring lead singer Peter Noone, went gold with the single, There’s a Kind of Hush. It was a two-sided hit, with the flip-side, No Milk Today, also receiving considerable play. Hush, however, was a top five song, while the ‘B’ side just made it into the top 40 at number 35.
. 1995 ~ Burl Ives, Oscar-winning actor and singer whose gentle voice helped popularize American folk music, died. He played powerful dramatic roles in movies including “The Big Country,” for which he won an Academy Award for best-supporting actor, and “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”
. 1999 ~ Anthony Newley, British actor and singer-songwriter (Doctor Dolittle; Goldfinger theme; Willy Wonka score), died at the age of 67
. 2007 ~ Don Ho, American musician (b. 1930)
. 2013 ~ Sir Colin Davis, English conductor (NY Met 1967-71), died at the age of 85
. 2015 ~ Percy Sledge, American soul singer (When A Man Loves A Woman), died at the age of 73
. 1377 ~ Guillaume de Machaut died. French poet and musician. Composer of monophonic and polyphonic music. Leading representative of the Ars nova tradition
More information about Machaut
. 1816 ~ Sir William Sterndale Bennett, British pianist, conductor and composer
. 1906 ~ Bud (Lawrence) Freeman, Jazz musician, tenor sax
. 1917 ~ Howard Keel, American singer and actor, born as Harold Clifford Leek. Keel was known for his roles in 1950s film musicals including Annie Get Your Gun, Show Boat, Calamity Jane, Kiss Me Kate and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The video shows how talented he was as a singer with a deep baritone voice. He appeared in singing and acting roles in films from 1948-68 and also appeared on TV in “Dallas.”
. 1928 ~ Teddy Charles, Vibraphonist, songwriter
. 1940 ~ Lester Chambers, Singer, musician, played harmonica
. 1941 ~ Margaret Price, British soprano
. 1944 ~ Jack Casady, Musician, KBC Band, Hot Tuna, Jefferson Airplane
. 1946 ~ Al Green, Singer, songwriter
. 1951 ~ Peabo Bryson, Singer
. 1958 ~ Van Cliburn of Kilgore, TX earned first prize in the Soviet Union’s Tchaikovsky International Piano Contest in Moscow.
. 1961 ~ Carnival opened on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre in New York City. Anna Maria Alberghetti starred in the musical which ran for 719 performances.
. 1963 ~ Jack Cassidy and Barbara Cook starred in She Loves Me, which opened at the O’Neill Theatre in New York City. The Broadway musical ran for 189 performances.
. 1980 ~ Broadway’s longest-running musical closed after eight years. Grease ran for 3,388 performances and earned $8 million. Though the longest running musical on the Great White Way at the time, Grease was also the third longest-running Broadway show. Other shows in the top five included: The Defiant Ones and Life with Father, Oh! Calcutta, A Chorus Line and Fiddler on the Roof.
. 1985 ~ The Grand Ole Opry, a radio staple from Nashville for 60 years, came to TV. The Nashville Network presented the country music jamboree to some 22-million homes across the U.S.
. 1684 ~ Nicolo Amati, member of a family of violin makers in Cremona, Italy, died.
. 1904 ~ Lily (Alice) Pons, Singer
. 1905 ~ The Hippodrome opened in New York City with the gala musical revue, A Yankee Circus on Mars.
. 1913 ~ Lionel Hampton, American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, drummer and bandleader; played with Benny Goodman and recorded with Louis Armstrong. He was responsible for introducing the vibraphone into jazz.
. 1914 ~ George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion” opened in London with Mrs. Patrick Campbell as Eliza Doolittle and Sir Herbert Tree as Professor Higgins. This would later become the musical My Fair Lady by Lerner and Loewe.
. 1931 ~ Billy (Richard) Vaughn, Musician, orchestra leader, music director
. 1932 ~ Tiny Tim (aka Darry Dover, Larry Love) (Herbert Khaury), Ukulele playing, a falsetto singer, best known for Tiptoe Through the Tulips. Like many performers the persona on stage was very different to the real one, he had a comprehensive knowledge of pre-rock popular music and also a deep baritone voice, he was also a conservative with a traditional belief system about religion and marriage.
. 1933 ~ Monserrat Caballé (1933) Spanish opera singer and a leading Verdi and Donizetti soprano
. 1938 ~ Fedor Chaliapin, foremost Russian operatic bass singer and one of opera’s greatest performers, died.
. 1939 ~ One of the classic theme songs of the Big Band era was recorded for Decca. Woody Herman’s orchestra recorded Woodchopper’s Ball.
. 1940 ~ Herbie Hancock, Oscar-winning American jazz/fusion musician, pianist and composer
. 1950 ~ David Cassidy, Singer
1954 ~ Bill Haley and His Comets recorded Rock Around the Clock for Decca Records. The song was recorded at the Pythian Temple, “a big, barnlike building with great echo,” in New York City. “Rock Around the Clock” was formally released a month later. It sold an estimated 25 million copies worldwide, making it the second biggest-selling single at the time behind Bing Crosby White Christmas
More information about Rock Around the Clock
. 1999 ~ BoxCar Willie, Country singing star, who blended a mellow voice with a rough-hewn hobo persona, died. He was 67.
. 1819 ~ Sir Charles Halle, German-born British pianist and conductor He settled in Manchester after being driven to England by the 1848 Revolution and in 1858 founded the famous Halle Orchestra.
. 1889 ~ Nick LaRocca, American jazz cornetist and composer (Tiger Rag)
. 1916 ~ Alberto Ginastera, Argentinian composer
. 1932 ~ Joel Grey, Entertainer
. 1938 ~ Kurt Moll, German bass
. 1938 ~ O.C. Cash founded SPEBSQS (The Society for the Preservation of Barbershop-Quartet Singing)
. 1956 ~ Elvis Presley reached the top spot on the Billboard music chart with his first double-sided hit. The disk featured Heartbreak Hotel and I Was the One. The RCA Victor record stayed at number one for eight weeks. Elvis also made the country and R&B charts, as well.
. 1961 ~ Bob Dylan made his professional singing debut in Greenwich Village’s Gerde’s Folk City. He sang Blowin’ in the Wind.
. 1970 ~ Beatles’ “Let It Be” single went #1 & stayed #1 for 2 weeks
.1987 ~ Joss Stone is a British born Soul, R&B and blues singer, she gained her big break following her win on the British Talent Show “Star for a Night” ( 2001 ). Following her win at 14 years old, she was signed to S-Curve Records and moved to America to begin recording her first album “The Soul Sessions” released in 2003 which gained success on the British Charts, the following year she released her second album “Mind, Body & Soul” which made the top 20 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and number 1 on the UK Albums Charts. She has since began an acting career making her film debut as the witch Angela in the fantasy adventure film Eragon.
. 2006 ~ June Pointer, American singer (Pointer Sisters) died at the age of 52
. 2017 ~ J. Geils [John Warren Geils Jr], American rock guitarist (J. Geils Band), died at the age of 71
. 1864 ~ Eugen d’Albert, British-born German pianist and composer
. 1885 ~ Sigmund Spaeth, American music scholar
. 1921 ~ Martin Denny, Composer, arranger, pianist
1930 ~ Claude Bolling, French jazz pianist and composer
More information about Bolling
. 1927 ~ Ballet Macanique was presented for the first time at Carnegie Hall in New York City. This was the first symphonic work that called for an airplane propeller and other mechanical contraptions not normally associated with the ballet.
. 1953 ~ Eddie Fisher was discharged from the Army and arrived home to a nice paycheck of $330,000 in record royalties. Fisher sold 7 million records for RCA Victor while on furloughs. Anytime was just one of several hits recorded during his stint in the Army.
. 1970 ~ Officially resigning from The Beatles, Paul McCartney disbanded the most influential rock group in history at a public news conference. The Beatles hit, Let It Be, was riding high on the pop charts. The last recording for the group, The Long and Winding Road (also from the documentary film Let It Be), would be number one for two weeks beginning on June 13, bringing to a close one of contemporary music’s greatest dynasties.
. 1979 ~ Nino Rota, Italian composer (Torquemada), died at the age of 67
. 2011 ~ Legendary folk singer and songwriter, Bob Dylan, who had become a voice for the anti-Vietnam war movement in the 1960s and 1970s in America, played his first concert in the Communist country of Vietnam. The sixty-nine year old musician held the concert in Ho Chi Minh City. Only about half of the seats at the venue were sold for the concert, this was largely attributed to the fact that nearly half of the population of Vietnam was under thirty years old and had no memories of the war with the United States.
. 1886 ~ Enrique Granados, Spanish pianist and composer, performed his debut piano concert in Barcelona.
. 1888 ~ Sol Hurok, Impresario
1890 ~ Efram Zimbalist, Russian-born American violinist and composer
More information about Zimbalist
. 1898 ~ Paul Robeson, American bass. Known for his sympathy for Russia he had his passport revoked for many years. The song Ole Man River, whose words he changed to fit his views, became his signature song.
. 1906 ~ Antal Dorati, Hungarian-born American conductor and composer. He was the first conductor to record all of Haydn’s symphonies.
. 1932 ~ Carl Perkins, early American rock ‘n’ roll figure who originally recorded Blue Suede Shoes. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987
. 1940 ~ Jimmy Dorsey and his orchestra, along with singer Helen O’Connell, recorded Six Lessons from Madame La Zonga for Decca Records.
. 1950 ~ Bob Hope hosted a Star-Spangled Review on NBC-TV. Hope became the highest- paid performer for a single show on TV. The Star-Spangled Review was a musical special.
. 1970 ~ Paul McCartney sought a High Court writ to wind up the Beatles business partnership, effectively ending the group’s career.
. 1977 ~ The Swedish pop group Abba made its debut at number one on the American pop charts, as Dancing Queen became the most popular record in the U.S.
. 1988 ~ Brook Benton passed away. He was an American singer and songwriter who was popular with rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and pop music audiences.
. 2001 ~ Graziella Sciutti, an Italian soprano and opera director best known for her interpretations of Mozart, died at the age of 68. Born in Turin, northern Italy, in 1932, Sciutti made her first operatic appearance at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France in 1951. She went on to perform under Herbert von Karajan at Milan’s La Scala. She was lead soprano at a smaller theater at La Scala called La Piccola Scala for eight years from its inception in 1955. She became a member of the Vienna State Opera in 1960 and the following year made her debut in San Francisco in one of her most celebrated roles, as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro. She began her directing career at Covent Garden in London and at the Glyndebourne Festival in England, where she directed and performed in Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine in 1977. She then went on to direct in Canada and for the opera companies in San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Dallas and Miami, as well as in Britain, Germany and Italy. She joined London’s Royal College of Music in the mid 1980s and continued to teach there until shortly before her death.
. 1692 ~ Giuseppe Tartini, Venetian Baroque composer and violinist (Trillo del Diavolo)
. 1848 ~ Gaetano Donizetti (born in 1797), died in Bergamo. He was an Italian composer.
. 1889 ~ Sir Adrian Boult, British conductor. In 1918 Gustav Holst asked him to conduct the first performance of “The Planets.”
. 1920 ~ Charles Tomlinson Griffes, US composer (White Peacock), died at the age of 35
. 1922 ~ Carmen McRae, US jazz singer/pianist
. 1923 ~ Franco Corelli, Italian tenor, debut: Spoleto (Italy) as Don Jose in Bizet’s Carmen in 1951; in films: Great Moments in Opera, Franco Corelli in Tosca, The Great Tenors – Voice of Firestone Classic Performances
. 1929 ~ Jacques Brel, Belgian-born French singer and songwriter
. 1941 ~ Peggy Lennon, Singer with The Lennon Sisters
. 1950 ~ Vaslav Nijinsky, legendary Russian ballet dancer, died. He is generally regarded as the 20th century’s greatest male dancer.
. 1963 ~ Julian Lennon, Singer, son of John and Cynthia Lennon
. 1968 ~ The Beatles went gold again, receiving a gold record for the single, Lady Madonna.
. 1971 ~ Chicago became the first rock group to play Carnegie Hall in New York City.
. 1986 ~ It took 18 years of singing the U.S. national anthem, but on this day, at long last, baritone Robert Merrill of the Metropolitan Opera became the first person to both sing the anthem and throw out the first ball at Yankee Stadium for the Yanks home opener.
. 2001 ~ Van Stephenson, a hit Nashville songwriter who also earned onstage success as a member of the trio BlackHawk, died after suffering from cancer at the age of 47. Stephenson released two albums as a solo pop artist in the 1980s, and scored the hit Modern Day Delilah in 1984. Moving back to Nashville from Los Angeles, Stephenson partnered with songwriter Dave Robbins to write a string of hits for Restless Heart, Dan Seals, and others. Stephenson and Robbins teamed up with former Outlaws singer Henry Paul at the suggestion of record executive Tim DuBois. The trio has had a string of hits since 1993, including Goodbye Says it All and Down in Flames.
. 2013 ~ Annette Funicello, American singer and actress (Mickey Mouse Club), died from multiple sclerosis complications at the age of 70.
. 1858 ~ Anton Diabelli, Austria publisher and composer, died at the age of 76. Diabelli was most familiar today as the composer of the waltz on which Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his set of thirty-three Diabelli Variations.
. 1899 ~ Robert Casadesus, French pianist and composer
. 1915 ~ Billie Holiday, American jazz singer, born as Eleanora Fagan. She sang with all the American big band leaders of her day while developing her own intimate style.
. 1919 ~ Ralph Flanagan, Bandleader
. 1920 ~ Ravi Shankar, Indian sitarist and composer
. 1925 ~ David Carr Glover, Piano Educator
. 1934 ~ Victor Feldman, British jazz pianist and drummer
. 1949 ~ Opening day of Rogers and Hammerstein’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical “South Pacific”. It was a musical classic of love and war, and it unfolded on a lush tropical island swarming with Seabees, nurses, natives and coconut trees on this night in 1949. Actually, it was not a tropical island, but the stage of the Majestic Theatre in New York City. Ezio Pinza starred as the suave French plantation owner with a shady past and Mary Martin portrayed the bubbly, pretty, but naive Navy nurse. Mary Martin washed her hair a zillion times as she sang, I’m Gonna Wash that Man Right Out of My Hair in 1,925 performances.
. 1950 Tony Awards went to the show and its producers, performers, director (Joshua Logan) and composers nine statuettes. It also earned a Pulitzer Prize in the same year and in 1958 was made into a movie.
More about Mary Martin
. 1951 ~ Janis Ian, Singer-songwriter
. 1954 ~ Gee, by The Crows, became the first rhythm and blues single to gain attention on pop music charts.
. 1970 ~ Leif Ove Andsnes, Norwegian pianist
. 1973 ~ Vicki Lawrence got her number one single as The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia made it to the top of the pop charts on this day.
. 1660 ~ Johann Kuhnau, German composer and writer
. 1895 ~ Waltzing Matilda, one of Australia’s best-known tunes written by bush poet Banjo Paterson, was first publicly performed at a hotel in the remote northern town of Winton.
. 1913 ~ ‘Pappy’ Wade Ray, Country entertainer/musician with the Grand Ole Opry
. 1917 ~ George M. Cohan wrote Over There, which became the chief marching song for World War I
. 1924 ~ Mimi (Miriam) Benzell, Opera singer, mezzo-soprano
. 1931 ~ Little Orphan Annie, the comic strip character developed by Harold Gray, came to life on the NBC Blue network. About 5 decades later, the comic strip inspired a Broadway play and a movie, both titled, Annie.
. 1937 ~ Merle Haggard, American country music singer, songwriter, fiddler and guitarist, CMA Entertainer and Male Vocalist of the Year (1970)
. 1944 ~ Michelle Phillips (Holly Michelle Gilliam), Singer with The Mamas and the Papas
. 1956 ~ Capitol Tower, the home of Capitol Records in Hollywood, CA, was dedicated. The building was the first circular office tower designed in America. It is 13 stories tall and 92 feet in diameter. At night, a light at the tip of the tower blinks the letters “H-O-L-L-Y-W-O-O-D” in Morse Code.
. 1971 ~ Igor Stravinsky, Russian-born composer, died in New York. One of the 20th Century’s leading musical figures and most famous for his ballets “The Rite of Spring” and “Petrushka.”
. 1971 ~ Rolling Stone Records was formed to promote the hits of The Rolling Stones. The famous Stones trademark, the lips logo, became widely used. Brown Sugar was the first hit by the Rolling Stones on the new label, followed by Wild Horses, Tumbling Dice and Start Me Up.
. 1973 ~ The Stylistics received a gold record for their ballad hit, Break Up to Make Up. The Philadelphia soul group placed 10 hits on the pop charts in the 1970s. More of their gold record winners include: You Are Everything, Betcha By Golly Wow, I’m Stone in Love With You and You Make Me Feel Brand New.
. 1974 ~ The first concert film featuring a soundtrack in quadraphonic sound opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre.
. 1974 ~ ABBA for Sweden won the 19th Eurovision Song Contest singing “Waterloo”
. 1985 ~ The country group, Alabama, went five-for-five as the album 40 Hour Week grabbed the top spot on the Billboard country chart. The group had a number one album for each of the previous five years. The popularity of the quartet (three are cousins from Fort Payne, AL) continues today.
. 1994 ~ Dick Cary passed away. He was an American jazz pianist, trumpet and alto horn player, and prolific arranger and composer.
. 1998 ~ Tammy Wynette, known as “The First Lady of Country Music” and world-renowned for her hit Stand by Your Man, died aged 55.
. 2001 ~ Daniel J. “Danny” Gaither, the original tenor voice of the former Bill Gaither Trio, died after a five-year battle with lymphoma. He was 62. He joined the Bill Gaither trio when he turned 18. His brother, Bill, led the group, and his younger sister, Mary Ann, was the group’s original female singer. Danny Gaither traveled with the family trio for about 10 years until the early 1980s, when he started doing solo work. Problems with his vocal chords forced him to give up his solo career about 10 years later. Danny Gaither won several Grammy and Dove awards for his work. He was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in April 1999.
. 2016 ~ Merle Ronald Haggard died. He was an American country music singer, songwriter, guitarist, fiddler, and instrumentalist
1924 ~ Henry Mancini, American arranger, composer, conductor and pianist
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