1583 ~ Girolamo Frescobaldi, Italian organist and composer
More information about Frescobaldi
• 1846 ~ This was the day when Richard Wagner began work on his opera Lohengrin. It remains an opera hit and “Here Comes the Bride”, based on the “Wedding March” from this opera.
• 1872 ~ Edward Burlingame Hill, American composer
• 1941 ~ Otis Redding, American rhythm-and-blues singer and songwriter
• 1942 ~ Inez Foxx, Singer with brother, Charlie
• 1942 ~ Luther Simmons, Singer with Main Ingredient
• 1945 ~ Dee Dee Sharp (Dione LaRue), Singer with Chubby Checker
• 1946 ~ Billy Preston, Musician, songwriter, singer with The Beatles, Syreeta, played with Little Richard’s Band
• 1947 ~ Freddy Weller, Musician, guitar with Paul Revere and The Raiders (1969), solo, songwriter
• 1952 ~ David Stewart, Guitarist, keyboard with Eurythmics
• 1956 ~ On this Sunday night, 54,000,000 viewers (82.6 percent of the U.S. television audience) turned their TV dials to CBS as Ed Sullivan introduced 21-year-old singer Elvis ‘The Pelvis’ Presley. Elvis sang Hound Dog and Love Me Tender. Ed Sullivan, watching out for the moral safety of the viewing public (plus a live audience of screaming Elvis fans in the show’s New York theatre) demanded that the CBS cameras not venture lower than Elvis’ waist! Sullivan felt that Presley’s wild gyrations of his pelvis would lead the nation’s females into a frenzy of untold proportions. One female Elvis fan described him as, “One big hunk of forbidden fruit.” Elvis got the largest fee to that date for appearing on Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town: $50,000.
• 1993 ~ Helen O’Connell passed away. She was an American singer, actress, and hostess, sometimes described as “the quintessential big band singer of the 1940s”.
• 1996 ~ Bill Monroe passed away. He was an American mandolinist, singer, and songwriter who created the style of music known as bluegrass. The genre takes its name from his band, the Blue Grass Boys, named for Monroe’s home state of Kentucky.
• 2003 ~ Warren Zevon, who wrote and sang the rock hit “Werewolves of London” and was among the wittiest and most original of a broad circle of singer-songwriters to emerge from Los Angeles in the 1970s, died at the age of 56. Zevon moved to Los Angeles in the 1960s, making a living writing jingles for television commercials. He also composed the song “She Quit Me Man” for the movie “Midnight Cowboy.” He was just out of his teens when he went to work for the Everly Brothers, first as a pianist and later as their band leader.
1735 ~ Johann Christian Bach, German composer
J.C. Bach was one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s sons. After he moved to London, he became known as the London Bach.
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1791 ~ Giacomo Meyerbeer, German Composer
More information about Meyerbeer
1912 ~ John Cage, American avant-guarde composer, pianist and writer
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• 1934 ~ Carol Lawrence (Laraia), Singer, actress
• 1939 ~ John Stewart, Singer with The Kingston Trio; songwriter
• 1945 ~ Al Stewart, Singer, guitarist with Time Passages
• 1946 ~ Freddie Mercury (Bulsara), singer, Queen, (1975 UK No.1 single ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ also UK No.1 in 1991, plus over 40 other UK Top 40 singles. 1980 US No.1 single ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’). Solo, (1987 UK No. 4 single ‘The Great Pretender’). Mercury died of bronchio-pneumonia on November 24th 1991 aged 45, just one day after he publicly announced he was HIV positive.
• 1946 ~ Loudon Wainwright III, Songwriter, singer
• 1956 ~ Johnny Cash hit the record running with I Walk the Line. Cash’s debut hit song climbed to #17 on the pop music charts.
• 1969 ~ Dweezil Zappa, Musician: guitar: MTV; son of musician Frank Zappa, brother of singer Moon Unit Zappa
• 1972 ~ Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway won a gold record for their duet, Where is the Love. The song got to number five on the pop music charts and was one of two songs that earned gold for the duo. The other was The Closer I Get To You in 1978.
• 2002 ~ Florence Lessing, a dancer who performed in films, nightclubs and Broadway musicals died. She was 86. Lessing worked with the famous jazz-dance choreographer Jack Cole, who spotted her as a teenager in an East Indian dance class. Lessing, Cole, and the teacher of the class, Anna Austin, formed a trio that performed at the Rainbow Room in 1938 and in the musical “Moon Over Miami” in 1939. Lessing went on to perform in many Broadway shows, including “Windy City,” choreographed by Katherine Dunham, and “Sailor Beware” and “Kismet,” both choreographed by Cole. She appeared in the 1952 film musical “Just for You,” which was choreographed by Helen Tamiris and starred Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman. Lessing, who studied a wide variety of dance forms, choreographed two of her own nightclub acts in the mid-1940s and taught dance at several schools.
• 2003 ~ Gisele MacKenzie, a singer-actress who became one of early television’s biggest stars through her appearances on “Your Hit Parade,” died. She was 76. Once known as Canada’s first lady of song, MacKenzie moved to Los Angeles with her family in 1951. In 1952 and 1953 she toured with Jack Benny, who recommended her for a spot on “Your Hit Parade.” In 1957, she left the show to headline her own musical variety program, “The Gisele MacKenzie Show.” It lasted half a year. She returned to weekly television in 1963 as a regular on “The Sid Caesar Show.” She also appeared on radio in Los Angeles with Edgar Bergen and Morton Downey. She was a regular on Bob Crosby’s Club 15 show and a featured performer on radio’s “The Mario Lanza Show.” She continued to appear regularly on television into the 1990s, on such shows as “Studio One,” “The Hollywood Squares,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “MacGyver” and “Boy Meets World.”
• 1910 ~ Dorothy Maynor, American soprano and educator
• 1914 ~ Tom Glazer, American folk singer, composer of a film score
• 1921 ~ Thurston Dart, British musicologist
• 1925 ~ Hank (Henry Williams) Thompson, ‘Crown Prince of Country Music’, singer with The Brazos Valley Boys
• 1933 ~ Tompall (Tom Paul) Glaser, Singer with The Glaser Brothers
• 1940 ~ Artie Shaw and the Gramercy Five recorded Summit Ridge Drive for Victor Records.
• 1942 ~ Al Jardine, Songwriter, singer, musician: bass, guitar with The Beach Boys
• 1942 ~ Frank Sinatra bid adieu to the Tommy Dorsey Band as he started his solo singing career.
• 1944 ~ Gary Leeds, Drummer with The Walker Brothers
• 1945 ~ George Biondo, Musician with Steppenwolf
• 1948 ~ Donald Brewer, Drummer, songwriter with Silver Bullet Band; Flint; Grand Funk Railroad
• 1963 ~ Reprise Records, owned by Frank Sinatra, became part of Warner Brothers Records. The ‘Chairman of the Board’ continued to record for the label.
• 1985 ~ Jo (Jonathan) Jones passed away. He was an American jazz drummer. A bandleader and pioneer in jazz percussion, Jones anchored the Count Basie Orchestra rhythm section from 1934 to 1948.
• 1888 ~ Friedrich Schorr, Hungarian bass-baritone
• 1917 ~ Laurindo Almeida, Grammy Award-winning composer, musician, guitarist
• 1919 ~ Marge Champion (Marjorie Belcher), Dancer, actress, choreographer with Gower Champion, model for animated Snow White
• 1924 ~ Theatregoers heard the song Indian Love Call for the first time in the operetta Rose Marie, which opened in New York City.
• 1927 ~ Sophie Tucker recorded her signature song, Some of These Days, for Columbia Records.
• 1931 ~ The radio show 15 Minutes with Bing Crosby debuted on CBS. The singer became a super-hot property after the debut.
• 1936 ~ David Blaki, British composer
• 1939 ~ Sam Gooden, Singer with Roosters
• 1940 ~ Jimmy Clanton, Singer, songwriter, toured with Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars
• 1943 ~ Rosalind Ashford, Singer with Martha and the Vandellas
• 1946 ~ Marty Grebb, Musician, keyboards with The Buckinghams
• 1957 ~ Steve Porcaro, Keyboards, singer with Toto
• 1958 ~ Fritz McIntyre, Keyboards with Simply Red
• 1965 ~ The Beatles received a gold record for their single Help!, from the movie of the same name.
• 1997 ~ Sir Rudolf Bing died. He was an Austrian-born opera impresario who worked in Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States, most notably being General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City from 1950 to 1972.
• 2000 ~ Elvera Sanchez Davis, a tap dancer and the mother of Sammy Davis, Jr., died at the age of 95. Known as Baby Sanchez, Davis began performing at 16 in the chorus line at the Lafayette Theater in Harlem. She continued her career into the early 1940s, dancing for six years in the chorus line at the Apollo Theatre. In 1923, performing in a touring show called “Holiday in Dixie”, she met and married Sammy Davis Sr., also a dancer in the show. Their son was born in 1925. He became a tap-dance prodigy by age 10, trained and brought up by his father after his parents separated. Mrs. Davis retired when the Apollo disbanded its dance chorus, though she danced informally into her 90s. She also performed in touring revues and in films including Carl Micheaux’s 1936 “Swing”. Davis continued to be involved with tap dance until her death, serving from 1989 as an adviser to the New York Committee to Celebrate National Tap Dance Day.
Sammy Davis, Jr. died in 1990 at the age of 64.
• 2001 ~ Troy Donahue died at the age of 65. He was a matinee idol who climbed to stardom in the 1950s with his role in “A Summer Place.”
• 2001 ~ Jazz saxophonist Jay Migliori, who worked with musicians and singers ranging from
Frank Zappa to Frank Sinatra, died of colon cancer. He was 70.
Migliori, who was also a founding member of the Grammy-winning jazz group Supersax, played on some 4,000 recordings during his career. Although he described his own style as “modern acoustic jazz with roots in bebop,” he was equally comfortable working with country stars like Glen Campbell, a wide variety of rock musicians including Zappa and the Four Seasons and pop stars as varied as Dean Martin and Celine Dion. He performed with more than two dozen bands over the years, including those led by Miles Davis, Stan Kenton, Terry Gibbs and Maynard Ferguson. In 1971, he joined Supersax, an ensemble built around a five-saxophone section that specialized in orchestrated Charlie Parker solos. He also recorded several albums of his own, including “Jazz in Transition” and “Smile.”
• 2006 ~ [Jean-Josephat] Clermont Pépin, Canadian pianist and composer (Implosion Symphony), died at the age of 80
1653 ~ Johann Pachelbel, German composer and organist
More information about Pachelbel
• 1887 ~ Emile Berliner filed for a patent for his invention of the lateral-cut, flat-disk gramophone. We know it better as the record player. Emile got the patent, but Thomas Edison got the notoriety for making it work and making music with his invention.
1854 ~ Engelbert Humperdinck, German opera composer
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• 1933 ~ Conway Twitty (Harold Lloyd Jenkins), Songwriter, CMA Male Vocalist of the
Year in 1975, Grammy Award-winner with Loretta Lynn, owns booking agency, music publishing company, Twitty Burgers, Twitty City theme park
1935 ~ Seiji Ozawa, Japanese conductor
More information about Ozawa
• 1940 ~ Dave White (Tricker), Singer, songwriter with Danny & The Juniors
• 1944 ~ Leonard Slatkin, Grammy Award-winning orchestra director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra
• 1946 ~ Barry Gibb, Musician, rhythm guitar, songwriter, singer with The Bee Gees
• 1946 ~ Greg Errico, Drummer with Sly and The Family Stone
• 1955 ~ Bruce Foxton, Guitar with 100 Men and The Jam
• 1957 ~ Gloria Estefan (Gloria Maria Milagrosa Fajardo), ‘Queen of Latin Pop’, Grammy Award-winning singer
• 1960 ~ When Oscar Hammerstein II died, the musical theater lost an outstanding composer. To honor the man and his music, every New York theater turned off its lights on this night in 1960.
• 1972 ~ The O’Jays received a gold record for Back Stabbers. It was the first hit for the group from Canton, OH. The O’Jays would place nine more hits on the pop and R&B charts. Five of them were gold record winners: Love Train, I Love Music, Use ta Be My Girl, For the Love of Money and Put Your Hands Together.
• 1977 ~ Singer Debbie Harry (of Blondie) signed a recording deal with Chrysalis Records. Chrysalis bought the group’s private stock label for $500,000. With the high visibility of the former Playboy Bunny, it was difficult to think of Blondie as a band, and not just Debbie Harry.
• 1982 ~ Clifford M Curzon, England, pianist, died at the age of 75
• 2001 ~ Sil Austin, a jazz artist who recorded more than 30 albums and the Top 40 hits Slow Walk, My Mother’s Eyes, and his signature song, Danny Boy, died of prostate cancer. He was 71. Austin taught himself how to play the tenor saxophone when he was 12. Four years later, he played Danny Boy on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour, a performance that caught the attention of Mercury Records. Austin performed all over Europe and Asia, usually traveling with his wife, the Rev. Vernice Austin.
• 1842 ~ (Victor) Alphonse Duvernoy, French pianist and composer. His works include operas, various pieces for piano and orchestra, chamber music, songs and piano music (including a set of 100 studies).
• 1853 ~ Percy Goetschius, American music teacher and critic
• 1919 ~ Kitty Wells (Muriel Ellen Deason),‘The Queen of Country Music’, Country Music Hall of Fame, married to Johnny Wright
• 1922 ~ Regina Resnik, American mezzo-soprano
• 1922 ~ The New Orleans Rhythm Kings recorded Tiger Rag, one of the most familiar ragtime jazz tunes ever. It was released on the General record label.
• 1935 ~ John Phillips, Singer with The Mamas & The Papas, actress MacKenzie Phillips’ father
• 1941 ~ John McNally, Singer, guitarist with The Searchers
• 1945 ~ Van Morrison, Irish blues-rock singer, songwriter and instrumentalist
• 1968 ~ The Beatles recorded their first songs for their own Apple label. The initial session included the big hits Revolution and Hey Jude.
• 1968 ~ The stars came out for charity as John and Yoko Lennon hosted the One on One concert in New York’s Madison Square Garden. Among the music greats appearing were Stevie Wonder and Roberta Flack. Over $250,000 was raised to aid mentally retarded children.
• 1984 ~ Beatles fans paid $271,180 dollars for memorabilia at an auction in London, England. An unpublished manuscript by John Lennon brought the largest amount – $23,056. A snare drum belonging to Ringo Starr brought $1,440.
• 1920 ~ Charlie Parker, American jazz alto saxophonist
Read quotes by and about Parker
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• 1924 ~ Dinah Washington (Ruth Lee Jones), Singer, Lionel Hampton’s band from 1943 to 1946
• 1928 ~ Thomas Stewart, American baritone
• 1942 ~ Sterling Morrison, Bass, guitar, singer with The Velvet Underground
• 1943 ~ Paul Whiteman Presents, a summertime radio replacement show, was heard for the last time. The hostess for the show was Dinah Shore. Whiteman’s 35-piece orchestra serenaded listeners on the NBC radio network. Whiteman’s well~known theme song was Rhapsody in Blue, composed by George Gershwin.
• 1946 ~ Ella Fitzgerald and The Delta Rhythm Boys recorded It’s a Pity to Say Goodnight on Decca Records. The song turned out to be one of Lady Ella’s most popular.
• 1964 ~ Roy Orbison’s Oh, Pretty Woman was released. It hit number one (for 3 weeks) on September 26th and became the biggest of his career. The title was inspired by Orbison’s wife Claudette interrupting a conversation to announce she was going out; when Orbison asked if she was okay for cash, his co-writer Bill Dees interjected: “A pretty woman never needs any money.” Oh, Pretty Woman was Orbison’s second #1 hit. The other was Running Scared on 6/05/61.
• 1966 ~ The Beatles performed at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, CA. It was the group’s last live appearance before they disbanded in 1970.
• 1986 ~ The former American Bandstand studio, at the original home of WFIL-TV in Philadelphia, PA, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. The studio is located at 4548 Market Street. We expect that any day now, Bandstand host Dick Clark will also be placed on the National Register.
• 1521 ~ Josquin Desprez, French/Franco-Flemish composer, died. Generally acknowledged as the greatest composer of the High Renaissance.
More information about Desprez
1886 ~ Eric Coates, British composer and violist
More information about Coates
• 1889 ~ Charles G. Conn of Elkhart, IN patented the metal clarinet. More than 100 years later the name, Conn, still represents one of the most popular musical instrument names, especially for clarinets.
• 1909 ~ Lester Willis “Prez” Young, American jazz tenor and saxophonist
• 1927 ~ Jimmy ‘Cajun’ Newman, Singer
• 1937 ~ Tommy (Adrian) Sands, Singer
• 1939 ~ Singer Allan Jones recorded I’m Falling in Love with Someone on Victor Records.
• 1942 ~ Daryl Dragon, Grammy Award-winning musician, songwriter, duo in The Captain and Tennille
• 1944 ~ Barry Conyngham, Australian composer
• 1944 ~ Tim Bogert, Bass with these groups: Showmen, Cactus, Vanilla Fudge
• 1949 ~ Jeff Cook, Singer, guitar with Alabama
• 1953 ~ Alex Lifeson, Guitarist with Rush
• 1970 ~ The Troubadour in Los Angeles, CA was the venue of singer Elton John’s first concert appearance in America and a record company executive for UNI records (a division of MCA) signed Elton to a recording contract.
• 1984 ~ The Menetta Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village opened. It was the first new off-Broadway theatre to be built in 50 years in New York City. The ribbon cutting was done by “America’s First Lady of the Stage”, Helen Hayes.
• 1990 ~ Stevie Ray Vaughan, killed in helicopter crash
• 1854 ~ Moritz Moszkowski, Polish-born German pianist and composer
More information about Moszkowski
• 1900 ~ Ernst Krenek, Austrian-born American composer, conductor and pianist
• 1905 ~ Constant Lambert, British composer, conductor and writer
• 1912 ~ Gene (Eugene Curran) Kelly, Dancer, actor: Singin’ in the Rain, An American in Paris, Anchors Aweigh, The Three Musketeers, Marjorie Morningstar, Inherit the Wind, North and South Book I; director: Singin’ in the Rain, Hello, Dolly!, A Guide for the Married Man, The Cheyenne Social Club
• 1917 ~ Tex (Sol) Williams, American country-western singer
• 1923 ~ Billy Jones and Ernie Hare, The Happiness Boys, were heard on radio for the first time. The two were billed as radio’s first comedians and were also credited with creating and performing the first singing commercial.
• 1936 ~ Rudy Lewis, Singer with Drifters
• 1942 ~ Patricia McBride, Ballerina: New York City Ballet. For many years she was Mikhail Baryshnikov’s only partner
• 1943 ~ LIFE magazine spotlighted a dance craze that was sweeping the U.S.A., the Lindy Hop
• 1947 ~ Keith Moon, Singer, drummer with The Who
• 1947 ~ Margaret Truman, daughter of U.S. President Harry S Truman, presented her first public concert. Margaret sang before 15,000 people at the Hollywood Bowl. The concert did not get great reviews. In fact, the critics didn’t like Margaret’s singing at all. And Margaret’s dad didn’t like the critics, and said so, from the White House.
• 1949 ~ Rick Springfield, Singer
• 1951 ~ Mark Hudson, Singer with The Hudson Brothers
• 1966 ~ The U.S. premiere of the motion picture Help!, starring The Beatles, was held for thousands of moviegoers wanting to see the group’s first, color, motion picture. Their first film, A Hard Day’s Night, had been produced in black and white.
• 1990 ~ David Rose passed away
• 2001 ~ Kathleen Freeman, a veteran character actress whose face if not her name was known to audiences from television sitcoms, the film classic “Singin’ in the Rain” and Broadway’s “The Full Monty,” died of lung cancer at the age of 82.
Freeman gave her final performance in “The Full Monty”. She played a sassy piano player in the hit musical and earned a Tony nomination in May 2001.
Big, brash and funny were Freeman’s trademarks in playing recalcitrant maids, demented nuns, mouthy housekeepers, battle-ax mothers, irate landladies and nosy neighbors.
Starting in the Golden Age of television, Freeman appeared in such shows as “Topper,” “The Donna Reed Show,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” “Hogan’s Heroes,” “The Lucy Show,” “The Golden Girls,” “Murphy Brown” and “Married … With Children.”
“This will sound very corny and I’m sorry,” Freeman said last year in an Associated Press interview, “but I have always had the sense I was put here to do this: I am somebody who is around to help the world laugh. I have always had that sense. Corny but absolutely true.”
In “Singin’ in the Rain,” considered by many to be the best movie musical ever made, she played Jean Hagen’s frustrated voice teacher. Among Freeman’s other films were the sci-fi thriller “The Fly,” “The Rounders” with Henry Fonda, “Far Country” with Jimmy Stewart, and “North to Alaska” starring John Wayne. More recently she appeared in “Dragnet,” “Gremlins II,” “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps” and both “Blues Brothers” comedies.
Freeman was born in Chicago and was propelled into show business at age 2. Her parents had a vaudeville act, Dixon and Freeman, in which their daughter did a little dance.
Freeman attended the University of California at Los Angeles, where she majored in music and was going to be a classical pianist. Then, she said, “A terrible thing happened. I got in a play and got a laugh. I just said a line and, `boom.”‘
Freeman then worked in many small theater groups, including the Circle Players, acting for such eminent directors – and actors – as Charles Laughton, Charlie Chaplin and Robert Morley.
At the same time, the early 1950s, the television explosion took over Los Angeles. From her first regular sitcom role, as the maid in “Topper,” Freeman went on to do just about every sitcom of the last 50 years.
For all her voluminous credits, Freeman’s stage credits were mostly on the road – touring as Miss Hannigan in “Annie” for 18 months, then in “Deathtrap” and later with Lauren Bacall in “Woman of the Year.”
Her only other Broadway appearance was for five months in the 1978 production of “13 Rue de l’Amore” starring Louis Jordan.
• 2001 ~ Frank Emilio Flynn, a blind pianist and Latin jazz pioneer who performed with many great American jazz artists, died at the age of 80.
Flynn lost his sight at age 13 but continued to study and perform classical works, transcribed into Braille, with the Symphonic Orchestra of Havana.
Flynn’s great passion was jazz, and in the 1950s he developed his own jazz-influenced ballad style, known in Cuba as “feeling.”
Performing with the Quinteto Cubana de Musica Moderno, or Cuban Quintet of Modern Music, he developed into one of the most important Cuban jazz musicians of his era.
1583 ~ Girolamo Frescobaldi, Italian organist and composer
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