On This Day

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On this day thirty years ago, December 8, 1980, John Lennon was gunned down in front of his apartment building in New York City, The Dakota, by crazed fan Mark David Chapman. He died that night, shocking the world, and leaving a musical legacy which will probably never be matched.
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(paul mccartney, lulu and john lennon)
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But also on this day, today, we got the incredibly sad news that The Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, has been diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer.
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.Oh my God, we need some good news.
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We desperately miss John Lennon, and we hope the very best for Aretha.

On This Day: December 6

On December 6, 1900, actress Agnes Moorehead was born, which would have made today her 110th birthday. Miss Moorehead died in 1974. She is most famous for playing Endora, Samantha's mother on the 1960's sitcom, "Bewitched", for which she was nominated for six Emmy Awards, but sadly never won. Moorehead had a long and illustrious movie career before beginning her long run of turning Darrin into chickens, goats and anything else one could name on a long list of farm animals. She was nominated four times for Oscars for Best Supporting Actress: "The Magnificent Ambersons" in 1943; "Mrs. Parkington" in 1945; "Johnny Belinda" in 1949; and "Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte" in 1965, but again, she never won. Moorehead was also the first woman to host The Academy Awards, (with Dick Powell), in 1948.
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December 6 is also a pivotal day in the life of The Rolling Stones. On this day in 1965, the rock band recorded two of its hits, "19th Nervous Breakdown" and "Mother's Little Helper" at RCA's Hollywood Studios in Los Angeles.
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Just four years later, Dec. 6, 1969 became one of the most infamous days in the entire career of the famous rock and roll band. On that day The Rolling Stones performed at a free concert at Altamont, California, hiring members of the Hell's Angels as security. At one point during the concert, a man in the audience, Meredith Wilson, was stabbed to death by one of the angels, who later claimed that Wilson was waving a revolver.

Something Was in the Water on October 28

Today, October 28, is an incredibly signficant day in the history of pop music.
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On Oct. 28, 1956, Elvis Presley made the second of his famous appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, and on that night, Sullivan presented the new rock and roll star with a gold record for "Love Me Tender".
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Exactly one year later, on Oct. 28, 1957, after a show at the Pan Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles, local police told Elvis that he couldn't wiggle his hips onstage. The next night, the police filmed Presley's entire show to study his performance.
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.One year later, on Oct. 28, 1958, Buddy Holly appeared on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand", and it was Holly's last major television appearance. On Feb. 3, 1959, Holly died in a plane crash and the day was forever after known as "The Day The Music Died".
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.Three years later, on Oct. 28, 1961, Raymond Jones, a customer in the NEMS Record Store in Liverpool, England, asked the store manager, Brian Epstein, for a record by a group called The Beatles which had recently been released in Hamburg, Germany. Epstein wasn't familiar with the record, but promised he would try to obtain information about it. Epstein claims that on that day he wasn't familiar with The Beatles, although later claims, including those made by The Beatles, themselves, disputed Epstein's story, saying that had been hearing about The Beatles for several months.
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.Exactly one year later, on Oct. 28, 1962, The Beatles, with new manager Brian Epstein in tow, appeared for the first time at The Empire Theatre, Liverpool's largest theater. Eight other acts were on the bill that night, including America's Little Richard. Also by now, Ringo Starr was a member of The Beatles, having replaced drummer Pete Best the previous year..
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.Two years later, on Oct. 28, 1964, The "T.A.M.I. Show" premiered at the Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California with Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, The Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes and The Rolling Stones. The two night concert was filmed by director Steve Binder and was released as a theatrical film.
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The concert is most notable for the performance of James Brown who showcased his wildly energetic and unique dance moves. Brown's performance was so electrifying that it is not only considered one of the greatest rock and roll performances of all time, but years later, The Rolling Stones would say that to try to follow Brown that night on stage was the biggest mistake of their lives. In addition to the big name stars in the film, one can also spot a very young Toni Basil and Teri Garr as background go-go dancers. The legendary The Wrecking Crew was the house band for the concert and included drummer Hal Blaine, guitarist Glen Campbell and pianist Leon Russell.
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We don't know what it is about the day of October 28 that makes for such legendary moments in pop music history, but whatever it is, we think that if we were new singers about to release a new single or album, or perform a concert, we might schedule everything to happen on this day.

Solomon Burke 1940 - 2010

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A soul legend and member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has died. Solomon Burke died today in The Netherlands of an apparant heart attack. Burke was a member of Atlantic Records' group of famous soul singers of the 1960's, which included Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin, although Burke never gained the widespread fame of the others. Proclaimed "The King of Rock and Soul" in 1964, Atlantic's legendary producer Jerry Wexler said that Burke was "the greatest soul singer of all time". Burke is best known for the song "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" which he wrote in 1964 and was quickly recorded by The Rolling Stones and Wilson Pickett, and was later sung by The Blues Brothers in their movie of the same name. His other best known song is "Cry To Me" which was an R&B hit in the 1960's, and then later hit again when it was used in the movie "Dirty Dancing". Burke won a Grammy in 2003 for Best Contemporary Blues Album, and he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001.

He Was No Hank Snow

September 4 marks another important day in the history of popular music.
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On September 4, 1954, Elvis Presley made his first appearance at the venerable Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. In 1954, rock and roll hadn't caught on yet, and the crowd that night was there to hear more traditional country music. The audience reception for Elvis was so poor that the Opry manager, Jim Denny, told Elvis that he should go back to driving a truck. Denny sounds like the Simon Cowell of his day.
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Also on this day in 1962, The Beatles made their first formal recordings at the famous Abbey Road studios. They recorded six songs, including "Love Me Do" and "Please Please Me".

I Hear a Symphony

Stevland Hardaway Judkins, better known as Stevie Wonder, signed with Motown records in 1961 at the age of 11. By 13, he had his first major hit, "Fingertips, (Part 2)", which was a live recording of a Little Stevie Wonder performance during one of the famous Motown road shows, the "Motortown Revue".

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(a jam session at Motown: berry gordy on the piano, marv johnson at far left, smokey robinson in rear, kim weston on microphone and stevie wonder at right)

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The song, which also featured a young Marvin Gaye on drums, hit the #1 spot on this day, August 24, in 1963. The accompanying album, "Recorded Live: The 12 Year Old Genius", had already been #1 on the album charts, which meant that Little Stevie Wonder became the first artist to have an album and single to hit #1 at the same time. Wonder also created a record unbroken to this day, that being the youngest artist to have a #1 album. The album went on to sell a million copies and made Little Stevie Wonder a teen idol.

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Today is also notable in music history for being the day that Queen began recording one of their most famous songs, "Bohemian Rhapsody". Freddie Mercury wrote the song, a strange mix of hard rock, opera and pop balladry, and after a three week rehearsal, the British rock group headed for the recording studio. Little did they know they would be there for three weeks, singing and playing for 10-12 hours per day. Lead guitarist Brian May related in a recent interview with National Public Radio that the recording tape had to be overdubbed so many times to carry all the multi-layered vocals of the quartet that the tape was worn almost through.

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After the single's release in 1976, it went to #9 in the U.S. but it hit #1 in Great Britain and stayed there for nine weeks. In 1991, after Mercury's death, it hit #1 in the U.K. again for another five weeks, which made it the third best selling single of all time in the U.K. The song also had a rebirth in the U.S., climbing to #2 on the pop charts after it was featured prominently in the 1992 Mike Myers film, "Wayne's World". Rolling Stone Magazine ranked "Bohemian Rhapsody" as the 163rd greatest song in their list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". Queen recorded a promotional video to accompany the song, which wasn't completely new, other artists, including Queen, had filmed videos of their songs before. But after the popularity of the video for "Bohemian Rhapsody", record companies for the first time began to see the value of making videos for their own artists, which, of course, paved the way for a little network which would come along five years later called MTV.

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Much as been made of the odd lyrics in the song, particularly in the opera section, and the song's overall meaning. Many feel that lead singer Freddie Mercury, who was struggling to become open about his homosexuality, wrote the lyrics of a young man crying "Let me go", to describe his desire to be freed from "the closet" of his secret gay identity. Others see the song as the straightforward telling of the story of a man who has killed another man and is begging to be freed from his impending execution. Whatever the song means, we would guess that everyone agrees that "Bohemian Rhapsody" is one of the greatest songs in rock history from one of the greatest rock bands of all time.

Diana, Flo and Mary

On this day, August 13, in 1964, The Supremes recorded the classic "Baby Love". It became the second of their 12 #1 hits.