Tag Archives: singer

October 4 ~ On This Day in Music

Posted by MaryO on

today

• 1812 ~ Fanny Perisiani, Italian coloratura soprano

• 1881 ~ The player piano was invented by Edward Leveaux of Sussex, England, who received a patent for it this day. There were many player piano inventions going on throughout the world during this time. Leveaux happened to be the lucky chap who received the patent England was handing out.

• 1929 ~ Leroy Van Dyke, Singer

• 1939 ~ A barber from Canonsburg (near Pittsburgh), PA, who had quite a singing voice, recorded That Old Gang of Mine with the Ted Weems Orchestra. That singer was the feature of the Weems band for many years before going solo as a radio, TV and stage star. You know him as ‘The Incomparable Mr. C.’, Perry Como. His string of hits for RCA Victor spans four decades. He was an NBC mainstay for years and years.

• 1943 ~ Is You is or is You Ain’t My Baby? was the musical question by Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five on this day on Decca Records.

• 1947 ~ James Fielder, Bass with these groups: Buffalo Springfield, Mothers of Invention and Blood, Sweat & Tears

• 1948 ~ Gordon MacRae hosted the premiere of a radio classic. The Railroad Hour debuted on ABC radio. The theme song was I’ve Been Working on the Railroad and the show was sponsored by….America’s Railroads.

• 1949 ~ John Aler, American tenor

• 1959 – Chris Lowe, Keyboards with Pet Shop Boys

• 1966 ~ It was, indeed, a Sunny Day for singer Bobby Hebb, who received a shiny gold record award for his song.

• 1967 ~ Woody (Woodrow Wilson) Guthrie passed away

• 1970 ~ Janis Joplin died from a drug overdose. She was 27. Joplin, known for her passionate, bluesy, vocal style, was the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company. She became a superstar with hits like, Down on Me, Pearl (her nickname) and Every Little Piece of My Heart; but Me and Bobby McGee was her only certified top 40 hit. The Bette Midler movie, The Rose, was based on Joplin’s life.

• 1999 ~ Art Farmer passed away

• 2000 ~ International diplomat and Newport Music Festival director David Meredith Evans died at the age of 64.

• 2001 ~ Irmgard Farden Aluli, considered the most prolific female Hawaiian composer since Queen Liliuokalani, died after suffering complications from colon cancer surgery. She was 89. Aluli, affectionately nicknamed “Aunty”, became the first living member to be inducted into the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame in 1998. In August, the Prince Kuhio Hawaiian Civic Club honored her as a cultural living treasure. She wrote more than 200 songs, including Boy from Laupahoehoe and E maliu Mai. Aluli began performing publicly after graduating from St. Andrew’s Priory in 1929. She was a member of the Annie Kerr Trio in the 1930s. In the late 1960s, Aluli, her daughters and a niece formed the group Puamana.

• 2001 ~ Jazz guitarist John Collins, who played with Nat King Cole for over a decade, died at the age of 83. Collins was born in Montgomery, Ala., and grew up in Chicago. His mother, Georgia Gorham, was a pianist and bandleader. Collins briefly played clarinet before switching to guitar and moving to New York, where he played with prominent jazzmen such as pianist Art Tatum. Collins accompanied singer Billie Holiday and saxophonist Lester Young in the 1940s and played in bands led by Benny Carter and Fletcher Henderson. He served in the Army during World War II, and played in Army bands. Esquire magazine gave Collins its New Star award as best guitarist of 1947, his lone jazz poll honor. Collins’ 14-year association with Cole began in 1951, when he replaced guitarist Oscar Moore. Collins played with Cole until the latter’s death in 1965. Collins went on to tour Europe with his own group. He played occasionally around Southern California in the 1990s but worked mainly as a private teacher.

October 3 ~ On This Day in Music

Posted by MaryO on

today

• 1912 ~ Gabriel Julian, original pianist of the Bobby Byrne Orchestra, arranger for Glenn Miller and founder of the Alabama Cavaliers Jazz Ensemble

• 1901 ~ The Victor Talking Machine Company was incorporated on this day. After a merger with Radio Corporation of America, RCA-Victor became the leader in phonographs and many of the records played on them. The famous Victrola phonograph logo, with Nipper the dog, and the words “His Master’s Voice”, appeared on all RCA-Victor phonographs and record labels.

• 1938 ~ Eddie (Ray Edward) Cochran, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer in 1987, singer

• 1940 ~ Alan O’Day, Songwriter, singer

• 1941 ~ Chubby Checker (Ernest Evans), American rock-and-roll singer

• 1941 ~ Ruggero Raimondi, Italian bass

• 1945 ~ Stan Kenton and his orchestra recorded Painted Rhythm for Capitol Records.

• 1946 ~ Dennis Day started his own radio show on NBC. Dennis, a popular tenor featured on The Jack Benny Show, played the same naive young bachelor he played on the Benny show. A Day in the Life of Dennis Day aired for five years.

• 1949 ~ Lindsey Buckingham, Guitarist with Fleetwood Mac

• 1954 ~ Stevie Ray Vaughan, Grammy Award-winning blues guitarist with brother Jimmie

• 1962 ~ The play, Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!, opened. Broadway welcomed Anthony Newley to the stage with many standing ovations.

• 1967 ~ Writer, singer and folk icon Woody Guthrie died.

• 1980 ~ ‘The Boss’, Bruce Springsteen, forgot some of the words to Born to Run before an enthusiastic opening night crowd in Ann Arbor, MI.

• 2000 ~ Benjamin Orr, the bass player of the popular 1980s group The Cars who also sang some of the band’s most popular songs, died of pancreatic cancer. He was 53. Orr, born Benjamin Orzechowski in Cleveland, formed The Cars in Boston in 1976 with fellow Ohio native Ric Ocasek. Orr sang lead vocals on several of the band’s hits, including Drive and Just What I Needed. After the band dissolved in 1986, Orr recorded a solo album, “The Lace,” which produced the hit, Stay the Night. Orr had toured with the band Orr, as well as The Voices of Classic Rock and Atlanta-based group Big People. Orr had also reunited with his former Cars mates for a documentary titled, “The Cars Live.” Rhino Home Video plans to release the production in November with part of the proceeds going to the National Pancreas Foundation.

• 2001 ~ Ed K. Smith, a Harrisburg radio icon who founded several stations and worked with entertainers from Bob Hope to Frankie Avalon, died at age 87. Smith founded AM radio station WCMB and WSFM “Sunny 99” in Pennsylvania, and eventually expanded his small radio network to stations as far away as Madison, Wis. Smith was perhaps best-known as the creator of “Junior Town”, a wildly popular variety show at Harrisburg’s Rio Theater. Those appearing on the show included singing cowboys Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, and crooner Frankie Avalon. Smith’s radio career spanned five decades. He began broadcasting while he was still in high school for WHP radio in Harrisburg. During the early 1930s he worked as an actor for serial radio programs broadcast from New York. During World War II, Smith served as a producer for armed services radio and worked with stars including Mickey Rooney, Donald O’Connor and Bob Hope.

October 2 ~ On This Day in Music

Posted by MaryO on

today

• 1875 ~ Henri Févier, French composer

• 1877 ~ Michel Dimitri Calvocoressi, French music writer

• 1928 ~ This was a busy day at Victor Records Studios in Nashville, TN. DeFord Bailey cut eight masters. Three songs were issued, marking the first studio recording sessions in the place now known as Music City, USA.

• 1935 ~ Peter Frankl, Hungarian-born British pianist

• 1939 ~ Flying Home was recorded by Benny Goodman and his six-man-band for Columbia Records. A chap named Fletcher Henderson tickled the ivories on this classic. It later became a big hit and a signature song for Lionel Hampton, who also played on this original version of the tune.

• 1945 ~ Don McLean, Songwriter, singer

• 1949 ~ Richard Hell (Myers), Musician, bass

• 1950 ~ Michael Rutherford, Guitarist with Mike & The Mechanics

• 1950 ~ Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the Peanuts Gang

• 1951 ~ Sting (Gordon Sumner), Singer, songwriter with The Police, (1983 UK & US No.1 single ‘Every Breath You Take’, plus 4 other UK No.1 singles). Solo, (1990 UK No.15 single ‘Englishman In New York’ plus over 15 other UK Top 40 singles). As a solo musician and a member of the Police, he received 16 Grammy Awards and has sold over 100 million records.

• 1955 ~ Philip Oakey, Singer with The Human League

• 1955 ~ “Good Eeeeeeevening.” The master of mystery movies, Alfred Hitchcock, presented his brand of suspense to millions of viewers on CBS. The man who put the thrill in thriller would visit viewers each week for ten years with Alfred Hitchcock Presents. And who could forget that theme song (The Funeral March of a Marionette)?

• 1956 ~ Freddie Jackson, Singer, songwriter

• 1971 ~ Tiffany (Tiffany Darwisch), Singer

• 1998 ~ Gene Autry passed away

• 2002 ~ Ruth “Mundy” Schoenfeld Blethen Clayburgh, an arts philanthropist who helped establish the Joffrey Ballet, died at age 92. Clayburgh was one of three benefactors who founded the local arts foundation Patrons of Northwest Civic, Cultural and Charitable Organizations, widely known as PONCHO. She also was instrumental in starting a chapter of Achievement Rewards for College Scientists, a scholarship fund. She was born in Chicago, moved to Seattle in 1930 when she married L. Kenneth Schoenfeld, scion of a furniture store family, and outlived him and two other husbands – William K. Blethen, publisher of The Seattle Times, and John Clayburgh of Los Angeles. She began her arts patronage after marrying Blethen in 1956. That year she helped launch the Joffrey Ballet, which became one of the nation’s leading dance companies and is now based in Chicago. In the company’s early years, she solicited donations of fabric from local shops to be sewn into costumes. On her 90th birthday, Joffrey co-founder Gerald Arpino created a ballet in her honor.

• 2002 ~ Three-time state fiddling champion Tex Grimsley died at the age of 85. Grimsley began playing the fiddle when he was 7 and built his first fiddle at age 14. Despite his later acclaim, Grimsley kept a day job as a safety and claims officer until he retired. Grimsley – whose first name was Marcel – was recognized as the Louisiana State Fiddling Champion in 1977, 1980 and 1982, and was also inducted into the Hall of Master Folk Artists at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches. He continued to perform and teach technique with his wife, also a master fiddler, into the early 1990s. In 1949, Grimsley co-wrote the tune I’m Walking the Dog with his brother Cliff Grimsley, a guitarist. The tune became a hit for country music great Webb Pierce.

• 2016 ~ Neville Marriner, English conductor and violinist (Academy of St Martin in the Fields), died at the age of 92

• 2017 ~ Tom Petty, American classic rock singer (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers), died of an accidental overdose at the age of 66

October 1 ~ On This Day in Music

Posted by MaryO on

•  1865 ~ Paul Dukas, French composer and music critic Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice was featured in the Walt Disney movie Fantasia and Fantasia 2000. More information about Dukas

• 1880 ~ A new director of the United States Marine Corps Band was named. It was fitting that John Philip Sousa have that position. He composed the Marine Corps hymn, Semper Fidelis.

• 1904 ~ Vladimir Horowitz, Russian-born American concert pianist
More information about Horowitz

• 1926 ~ Max Morath, Ragtime pianist

• 1926 ~ Roger Williams (Louis Weertz), Pianist

• 1928 ~ Duke Ellington recorded The Mooche on the Okeh label.

• 1928 ~ Forever, by Ben Pollack and his band, was recorded on Victor Records. In Pollack’s band were two talented young musicians: Benny Goodman and Jack Teagarden.

• 1932 ~ Albert Collins, Grammy Award-winning musician, blues guitarist, songwriter, Blues Hall of Fame in 1989

• 1933 ~ Richard Harris, Actor, singer

• 1935 ~ Julie Andrews, British singer and actress.

• 1943 ~ Herb Fame (Feemster), Singer – Herb of Peaches & Herb

• 1944 ~ Scott McKenzie (Phillip Blondheim), Singer, songwriter

• 1945 ~ Donny Hathaway, Singer, sang with Roberta Flack

• 1956 ~ Albert Von Tilzer, died.

• 1966 ~ I Love My Dog was released by Cat Stevens. He was 19 years old. Five years later, he recorded such hits as Wild World, Morning Has Broken, Peace Train and Oh Very Young. By 1979, Cat Stevens (born Steven Demitri Georgiou), disenchanted with the music business, converted to the Islamic religion and changed his name to Yusef Islam. He may not have liked the music biz anymore but Cat still loves his dog.

• 2000 ~ Robert Allen, who composed songs performed by Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis and Billie Holiday, died at the age of 73. Allen wrote his biggest hits with lyricist Al Stillman. The two collaborated on “Chances Are”, and “It’s Not for Me to Say”, which were major hits for Mathis, as well as a series of hits for the group The Four Lads in the mid-1950s. They also wrote “Home for the Holidays”, which has been recorded by dozens of performers, such as Garth Brooks and Andy Williams. On his own, Allen wrote the fight song for Auburn University and soundtrack music for the movies “Lizzie”, ” Enchanted Island”, and “Happy Anniversary.” In 1963, he wrote the music for and produced “Three Billion Millionaires”, a benefit album for the United Nations by Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Danny Kaye, Sammy Davis, Jr., Jack Benny and Carol Burnett.

• 2018 ~ Charles Aznavour, French singing star, died at the age of 94

September 29: On This Day in Music

Posted by MaryO on

today

• 1863 ~ Opera “The Pearl Fishers” (Les Pêcheurs de Perles) by Bizet was first produced at the Théâtre Lyrique in Paris

• 1907 ~ (Orvon) Gene Autry, ‘The Singing Cowboy’, actor in over 100 cowboy westerns, singer, CMA Hall of Fame and the only person to have 5 Hollywood Walk of Fame stars. They were for film, radio, TV, stage and records.

• 1930 ~ Richard Bonynge, Australian conductor

• 1930 ~ “Ba, ba, ba, boo. I will, ba ba ba boo … marry you!” ‘Der Bingle’, better known as Bing Crosby, America’s premier crooner for decades, married Dixie Lee.

• 1935 ~ Jerry Lee Lewis, American rock-and-roll singer and pianist
More information about Lewis

• 1942 ~ Jean-Luc Ponty, French jazz pianist

• 1947 ~ Dizzy Gillespie presented his first Carnegie Hall concert in New York, adding a sophisticated jazz touch to the famous concert emporium. Diz would become one of the jazz greats of all time. His trademark: Two cheeks pushed out until it looked like his face would explode. But, as the hepcats said, “Man, that guy can blow!”

• 1948 ~ Mark Farner, Guitar: singer with Grand Funk Railroad

• 1953 ~ Danny Thomas, who many now remember as Marlo’s dad and Phil Donahue’s father-in-law, is also remembered for many things that influenced television. At the suggestion of his friend, Desi Arnaz, Thomas negotiated a deal that would allow him to retain ownership rights to his programs, like Make Room for Daddy, which debuted this day on ABC-TV. Later, in 1957, the show would move to CBS under the Desilu/Danny Thomas Productions banner. The rest is, literally, TV history. His success allowed him to give something back to the world, in the form of his philanthropic efforts to build St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis. “All I prayed for was a break,” he once told an interviewer, “and I said I would do anything, anything, to pay back the prayer if it could be answered. All I needed was a sign of what to do and I would do it.” And so it was.

• 1962 ~ My Fair Lady closed on this day after a run of 6½ years. At the time, the show held the Broadway record for longest-running musical of all time. 3,750,000 people watched the wonderful show and heard tunes like Wouldn’t it Be Loverly, Show Me, Get Me to the Church on Time, I’m an Ordinary Man, I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face and the Vic Damone/Robert Goulet standard, On the Street Where You Live. The team of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe turned George Bernard Shaw’s play, Pygmalion, into a colorful, musical production. They gave a new life to the rough-around-the-edges, cockney, flower girl; the subject of a bet between Professor Higgins (Just You Wait, ’Enry ’Iggins) and a colleague. The Professor bet that he could turn Eliza Doolittle into a proper lady (The Rain in Spain). With a Little Bit of Luck he did it. Eliza, looking and acting very much like a princess, sang I Could Have Danced All Night. After its Broadway success, My Fair Lady was made into a motion picture (1964) and won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture.

• 1983 ~ On the Great White Way, A Chorus Line became the longest-running show on Broadway, with performance number 3,389. Grease, the rock ’n’ roll production, had been the previous box-office champ since 1980.

• 2001 ~ Dan Cushman, a prolific fiction writer whose 1953 novel “Stay Away, Joe” was made into a movie starring Elvis Presley, died of heart failure. He was 92. The former New York Times book critic wrote dozens of books and was best known for “Stay Away, Joe.” The book’s portrayal of American Indians stirred controversy in Montana, and Indian novelist James Welch vetoed an excerpt for inclusion in “The Last Best Place,” a Montana anthology. In 1998 Cushman received the H.G. Merriam Award for Distinguished Contributions to Montana Literature, joining such notables as Richard Hugo, A.B. Guthrie Jr. and Norman Maclean. Cushman was first paid for his writing when he received $5 a week for reporting news for a newspaper in Big Sandy, Mont. “It was in Big Sandy where I learned all the trouble you can cause by printing all the news of a small town,” Cushman said. He wrote books set in the South Pacific, the Congo and the Yukon, and drew on his colorful life for much of his fiction. Cushman worked as a cowboy, printer, prospector, geologist’s assistant, advertising writer and radio announcer.

September 28: On This Day in Music

Posted by MaryO on

today

• 1598 ~ The first patent to print songbooks was issued on this day to Thomas Morley, a composer of madrigal songs.

• 1902 ~ Donald Jay Grout, American musicologist
A History of Western Music.  An older version of this book is available for loan in the O’Connor Music Studio
More information about Grout

• 1927 ~ Joaquín Gutiérrez Heras, Mexican composer

• 1928 ~ Glen Gray’s orchestra recorded Under a Blanket of Blue, with Kenny Sargeant on vocals.

• 1930 ~ Tommy Collins (Leonard Sipes), Singer, songwriter

• 1938 ~ Ben E. King (Benjamin Earl Nelson), Singer, songwriter

• 1946 ~ Helen Shapiro, Singer, actress

• 1968 ~ The Beatles rode the nearly seven-minute-long Hey Jude to the top of the charts for a nine week-run starting this day. Talk about your microgroove recording! Copies of this Apple release were shipped by the dozen to radio stations because the platters wore out after just a few plays.

• 1984 ~ Saluting his 34 years in television, Bob “If There’s an Honor I’ll Be There” Hope showed outtakes of his years in television on (where else?) NBC. When he began in television’s infancy, back in 1950, Hope said he got into the new medium “…because the contract was so delicious, I couldn’t turn it down.”

• 1991 ~ Miles Davis III passed away

• 1994 ~ “Cats” 5,000th Broadway performance (joined A Chorus Line & Oh! Calcutta!)

• 2010 ~ Dolores Wilson, American opera singer

• 2015 ~ Frankie Ford, American rock vocalist (Sea Cruise), died at the age of 76

Singer Florence Foster Jenkins

Posted by MaryO on

Florence-Foster-Jenkins

Florence Foster Jenkins was an American socialite and amateur soprano who was known and mocked for her flamboyant performance costumes and notably poor singing ability. The historian Stephen Pile ranked her “the world’s worst opera singer … No one, before or since, has succeeded in liberating themselves quite so completely from the shackles of musical notation.”

Despite (or perhaps because of) her technical incompetence, she became a prominent musical cult figure in New York City during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. Cole Porter, Gian Carlo Menotti, Lily Pons, Sir Thomas Beecham, and other celebrities were fans. Enrico Caruso is said to have “regarded her with affection and respect”.

In 2016 Meryl Streep made Jenkins famous (again)

In the 1940s, New York socialite Florence Foster Jenkins (Meryl Streep) dreams of becoming a great opera singer. Unfortunately, her ambition far exceeds her talent. The voice Florence hears in her head is beautiful, but to everyone else it is quite lousy. Her husband St. Clair goes to extreme lengths to make sure his wife never finds out how awful she truly is. When Florence announces her plans for a concert at Carnegie Hall, St. Clair soon realizes that he’s facing his greatest challenge yet.

 

September 24: On This Day in Music

Posted by MaryO on

today

• 1806 ~ George Alexander Osborne, Irish pianist and composer (La Pluie de perles),

• 1922 ~ Cornell MacNeil, American baritone

• 1927 ~ Alfredo Kraus, Spanish tenor

• 1936 ~ Jim (James Maury) Henson, Creator of vocalist, Kermit the Frog.

There’s a fictional neighborhood where some of the residents are named Kermit, Big Bird, Bert & Ernie, Miss Piggy, and Oscar the Grouch. It’s called Sesame Street. The creator of the lifelike characters, Jim Henson, was born on this day. The puppeteer first named his puppets, Muppets, in 1954 when he was working as a producer of the Washington, D.C. TV show, Sam and Friends. Henson moved his Muppets to network TV in 1969. Children of all ages were able to enjoy the Muppets’ antics on the educational, yet entertaining Sesame Street. The Muppets then got their own show, The Muppet Show; which generated The Muppet Movie and other films, like The Muppets Take Manhattan and The Great Muppet Caper. And Jim Henson got the awards: 18 Emmys, 17 Grammys, 4 Peabody Awards and 5 Ace Awards (National Cable Television Association). The premier muppeteer, and voice of Kermit the Frog, died suddenly in May of 1990. Jim Henson lives on through his Muppets.

• 1938 ~ Pablo Elvira, Puerto Rican baritone

• 1940 ~ Barbara Allbut, Singer with Angels

• 1940 ~ Mamie “Galore” Davis, Blues singer

• 1941 ~ Linda McCartney (Eastman), Photographer for Rolling Stone magazine, singer with Wings with husband Paul McCartney

• 1942 ~ Gerry Marsden, Singer with Gerry & The Pacemakers

• 1942 ~ Glenn Miller ended his CBS radio broadcasts for Chesterfield Cigarettes. It was time for Miller to go to war. The show had aired three times a week for three years.

• 1955 ~ Millions of Americans tuned in to watch Judy Garland make her TV debut on the Ford Star Jubilee. The CBS show received the highest television ratings to that time.

• 1968 ~ The Vogues received a gold record for Turn Around Look at Me on the Reprise label.

• 2002 ~ Tim Rose, a raw-voiced folk-rocker who recorded memorable versions of Hey Joe and Morning Dew, died shortly after surgery for bowel cancer. He was 62. Rose started his music career in his hometown of Washington, D.C., in a duo billed as Michael & Timothy. Rose then worked with Cass Elliot, a future member of the Mamas and the Papas, in a group called The Triumvirate. When James Hendricks – who later married Elliot – joined the group, it was renamed The Big Three. Rose signed a recording contract with Columbia in 1966, and his album, “Tim Rose,” debuted a year later. In 1968, Rose toured in Britain with a band including John Bonham, the drummer for Led Zeppelin. Rose’s musical career stalled in the 1980s. In 1996, he returned to live performing in London with a show that featured reminiscences of his career’s ups and downs.

September 23: On This Day in Music

Posted by MaryO on

today

• 1870 ~ John Lomax, American folk-song collector and founder of the American Folklore Society at the Library of Congress

• 1923 ~ Jan Savitt and his orchestra recorded 720 in the Books on Decca Records.

• 1926 ~ John (William) Coltrane, American jazz tenor and soprano sax, composer

• 1930 ~ Ray Charles, American soul singer, pianist and songwriter
More information about Charles

• 1935 ~ Les McCann, Singer

• 1940 ~ Paul Williams, Academy Award-winning songwriter

• 1943 ~ Steve Boone, Bass, singer with The Lovin’ Spoonful

• 1943 ~ Julio Iglesias, Singer, Guinness Book of Records for sales of more than 100 million copies of 60 LPs in five languages

• 1945 ~ Ronald Bushy, Drummer with Iron Butterfly

• 1949 ~ Bruce Springsteen ‘The Boss’, American rock singer and songwriter, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 15, 1999

• 1959 ~ Lita Ford, Guitarist with The Runaways

• 1967 ~ The Box Tops from Memphis hit #1 with The Letter. Though the song was #1 for four weeks and remained on the charts for 13 weeks. The Box Tops reorganized right after that first hit and never made it to #1 again.

• 1969 ~ The London Daily Mirror became a rumormonger. It printed a story saying that Beatle Paul McCartney was dead. It was the first, but not the last, time that rumor would make the rounds.

• 1971 ~ The Honey Cone scored their second gold record with Stick-Up on the Hot Wax label. It was a follow~up to their #1 smash, Want Ads on June 12, 1971.

• 1972 ~ Mac Davis earned one of the 1970s’ most head-scratching #1 hits with “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me”.

• 1987 ~ Bob Fosse passed away. He was an American dancer, musical theatre choreographer, director, screenwriter, film director and actor.

• 2003 ~ Rex Robbins, a Broadway actor who traveled nationally with “Gypsy,” “Hello Dolly!” and “Into the Woods,” died of a subdural aneurysm while visiting relatives. He was 68. Robbins, who lived in Manhattan, had roles in 18 Broadway shows between 1963 and 2000, including Herbie in the 1974 revival of “Gypsy” with Angela Lansbury and Buckingham in “Richard II” with Al Pacino in 1979. He also appeared in films including the original “Shaft,” “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “1776,” and was in more than 300 television commercials.

• 2006 ~ Sir Malcolm Arnold, English composer and professional trumpeter died. His output of works features music in many genres, including a cycle of nine symphonies, numerous concertos, concert works, chamber music, choral music and music for brass band and wind band. He wrote extensively for the theatre, with five ballets specially commissioned by the Royal Ballet, as well as two operas and a musical. He also produced scores for more than a hundred films, among these The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won an Oscar.

Happy Birthday, Ray Charles!

Posted by MaryO on

Ray Charles (Robinson) was a singer, pianist, composer who was born in Albany, Ga in 1930. He lost his sight (from glaucoma) when he was six and attended a school for the blind where he learned to read and write music in braille and play piano and organ.

Orphaned at age 15, he left school and began playing music to earn a living, moving to Seattle, Wash., in 1947. Dropping his last name, he performed at clubs in the smooth lounge-swing style of Nat “King” Cole.

After some hits on Swing Time Records, he switched to Atlantic Records in 1952 and began to develop a rougher blues and gospel style. For New Orleans bluesman, Guitar Slim, he arranged and played piano on “The Things I Used To Do” (1953); the record sold a million copies. He went on to record his own “I’ve Got a Woman” in 1955 with an arrangement of horns, gospel-style piano, and impassioned vocals that led to the gospel-pop and soul music of the 1960s and to his hit “What’d I Say” (1959).

Possessing a multifaceted talent, he recorded with jazz vibist Milt Jackson, made a country and western album that sold 3 million copies (1962), and continued to release a variety of pop hits, Broadway standards, and blues, gospel, and jazz albums. A major influence on popular black music during his early years, he gradually reached out to influence both white musicians and audiences. And although he had been convicted of using drugs in the 1950s, he lived to see the day when he was so acceptable to mainstream Americans that he became virtually the chief image for promoting Pepsi-Cola and he was asked to perform at many national patriotic and political events.