This is the week that was in matters musical…
Some classic Skynyrd to listen to so it’ll have to be the last boot recorded before the crash the sentimentally titled “Glide Like A Brick”.
Madonna’s “Erotica” is that the one where she sings “Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie put your hands all over my body” ?
1908, Columbia takes out an ad in The Saturday Evening Post touting their new two-sided records…
1949, future Dead Boys leader Stiv Bators is born Stivan John Bator in Youngstown, Ohio…
1954, The Penguins record the doo-wop classic, “Earth Angel”…the song will choreograph a million back-seat couplings…
1956, “Love Me Tender” is the first single to enter the pop charts at #1 … Elvis’ slow dance tune also appears on the Country and Western chart and the R&B charts…
1958, Tommy Facenda, a backup vocalist for Gene Vincent, charts with a single called “High School U.S.A.”… the tune is released in 28 different versions, each name-dropping a different major high school across the country…the combined sales get the single to #28 on the pop chart…
1961, 20-year-old Bob Dylan records his eponymous debut album accompanied only by his guitar and harmonica … studio cost is a whopping $400 … filling out the studio’s tax reporting form, he lists his name as “Blind Boy Grunt” … the young folkie goes on to become one of the most important musical figures of the 20th century…meanwhile in Britain, the Beatles join forces with Gerry & The Pacemakers for a one-off show…the combine is billed as The Beatmakers…
1962, the artist known as Little Stevie Wonder makes his first recording … Steveland Morris Judkins’ first single sinks without a trace but the accolades are not far away … this same week James Brown records a live show in the face of objections from his record label…an in-concert soul album has never been done before… Live at the Apollo turns out to be among the Godfather of Soul’s most brilliant performances and the album goes on to sell millions…
1964, a London band known as the High Numbers is rejected after an audition with EMI … formerly known as The Who, the four young rockers have recently come under the influence of manager Pete Meaden, who suggested the name change and dressed the boys in mod suits … Meaden’s all wet, but the kids are alright … they’ll resume their name and ride the magic bus to fame…
1966, The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” charts for the first time on its way to #1…the single is the result of six month’s work and 17 sessions in four different studios at a then-unprecedented cost of $16,000…
1969, The Who start a six-night stand at New York’s Fillmore East in support of Tommy …
1973, John Lennon files suit against the U.S. government alleging that the FBI tapped his phone in an effort to deport him…
1977, Lynyrd Skynyrd fans take a gut shot this week when they learn that band members Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, and Ronnie Van Zant have died along with three members of their entourage in a plane crash in a swamp near Gillsburg, Mississippi …
1978, Sid Vicious attempts to off himself at New York’s Rikers Island jail, where he’s awaiting trial for the murder of his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen … the bad Pistol will get out and OD before he can be tried for the crime … this same week, the bad Rolling Stone, Keith Richards, receives a suspended one-year sentence after pleading guilty to heroin possession in Toronto…he’s also ordered to play a charity concert for the blind…
1986, former Tubes singer Jane Dornacker, who had gone on to a new career as a traffic reporter, dies in a New York helicopter crash…
1988, Fantasy Records, after more than a decade of rancorous relations with John Fogerty, launches a suit claiming he plagiarized his own song, “Run Through the Jungle,” during the composition of “The Old Man Down the Road” … it will be 1995 before it is finally decided that Fantasy is fantasizing…
1991, legendary rock promoter Bill Graham attends a Huey Lewis and the News show in Concord, California where he gets the band to agree to perform at a benefit concert for the victims of the 1991 Oakland firestorm… he returns to his helicopter, but is stopped by the News’ bass player Mario Cippolina, who, in a flash of clairvoyance, urges Graham to take a limo…after being reassured by the pilot, Graham decides on the flight… moments after take-off, the helicopter’s rotors became entangled in power lines and the craft plummets to the ground killing Graham, his girlfriend, and the pilot…
1992, long before her career as a writer of children’s books, Madonna releases Sex –a steel-bound book of erotic photos of herself and other beautiful people that sells out the first run of a half million copies in no time … she also releases her album Erotica this week … it will sell over 2 million copies…
1995, Generation X loses another of its greatest voices when Blind Melon singer Shannon Hoon is found dead of a cocaine overdose on the band’s tour bus in New Orleans…Pretenders frontwoman Chrissie Hynde makes a return trip to her home town of Cleveland to sing the national anthem at game three of the World Series…
1998, the publisher of Alice Cooper’s “Eighteen” files suit against Cooper’s primary make-up rock emulators, KISS, claiming they ripped off his song “Eighteen” for their song, “Dreamin'” … Cooper has nothing to do with it, and hasn’t even heard the KISS tune … asked about the outcome years later, Cooper says, “I think we all forgot to show up at court. Paul Stanley bought me a cheeseburger to make up for the whole thing”…meanwhile in Toledo Ohio, singer Eddie Nichols of the swing band Royal Crown Revue is arrested for taking a swing at a sheriff in a diner…
2001, VH1 hosts its Concert for New York, which raises over $30 million for victims of 9/11 with performances by such heavy hitters as The Who, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Elton John, and Bon Jovi…
2003, singer-songwriter Elliot Smith takes his own life in his Los Angeles apartment … a hero of the Portland, Oregon, indie-rock scene in the ’90s, Smith gained national prominence after director Gus Van Sant tapped him for the soundtrack to the 1997 film Good Will Hunting … Smith’s song “Miss Misery” was nominated for an Oscar the following year … a posthumous release, From A Basement On A Hill, includes material the singer was working on when he died…
2004, crusading New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announces an investigation of payola practices in the music business … EMI, Warner Music Group, Sony-BMG, and Universal all receive subpoenas demanding that they produce communications with independent record promoters, the middlemen paid by record companies to get airplay … before it’s all over the labels will end up forking over large cash fines…also this week, “singer” Ashlee Simpson gets busted for lip syncing during a performance on Saturday Night Live … her drummer mistakenly cues up a backing track for the same song the band had played earlier in the evening, catching Ashlee off guard … the real fun begins when a pre-recorded vocal track begins to play, revealing that the song had been lip synced … the track is quickly faded, but Ashlee is busted, and after dancing an awkward, vaudevillian type of jig, exits stage right … the band continues to play along to the first song as the network cuts to a commercial …
2005, Jamaican reggae star Buju Banton is arrested in connection with the beating of six gay men in June 2004…Banton had a hit with the song, “Boom Bye Bye” whose lyrics addressed burning and shooting gays… Rivers Cuomo, frontman for Weezer announces he’ll return to Harvard University to complete his last semester for a bachelor’s degree…Cuomo’s higher education had been interrupted a couple of times by touring and recording… U2 guitarist the Edge, producer Bob Ezrin, Gibson Guitar, and Guitar Center join forces to supply instruments to Gulf Coast musicians devastated by Hurricane Katrina…the two corporate partners pledge a minimum of $1 million… after taking heat over its copy-protection system that buried software deep in Window’s-based computers making them susceptible to viruses, Sony BMG announces it will stop embedding the software on its CDs while seeking another approach to piracy prevention…
And that was the week that was.
Arrivals
October 19: Piano Red born William Lee Perryman (1911), Billy Gayles (1931), Dave Guard of The Kingston Trio (1934), Peter Tosh (1944), George McCrae (1944), Jeannie C. Riley (1945), Wilbert Hart of The Delfonics (1947), Patrick Simmons of the Doobie Brothers (1948), Nino DeFranco (1956), Karl Wallinger of World Party (1957), Jennifer Holliday (1960), Dan “Woody” Woodgate of Madness (1960), Pras Michel of the Fugees (1972)
October 20: Jellyroll Morton born Ferdinand Joseph Lamothe (1890), Johnny Moore of The Blazers (1906), Eddie Harris (1934), rockabillyette Wanda Jackson (1937), Jay Siegel of The Tokens (1939), Ric Lee of Ten Years After (1945), Al Greenwood of Foreigner (1951), Tom Petty (1953), Mark King of Level 42 (1958), James George “Soni” Sonefeld of Hootie and The Blowfish (1964), Snoop Dogg (1971)
October 21: Dizzy Gillespie (1917), salsa queen Celia Cruz (1924), Jo Lustig (1925), Manfred Mann AKA Michael Lubowitz (1940), Memphis guitarist and producer Steve Cropper (1941), Elvin Bishop (1942), Kathy Young of Kathy Young & The Innnocents (1945), Lee Loughnane of Chicago (1946), Brent Mydland of the Grateful Dead (1952), Go-Go’s guitarist Charlotte Caffey (1953), Eric Faulkner of Bay City Rollers (1955), Julian Cope of Teardrop Explodes (1957), six-string slinger Steve Lukather (1957), Harold “Whiz Kid” McGuire (1961)
October 22: Franz Liszt (1811), Annette Funicello (1942), Bobby “I Fought The Law” Fuller (1943), Leslie West of Mountain (1945), Eddie Brigati of The (Young) Rascals (1945), Dean Kastran of The Ohio Express (1948), Dead Boy Stiv Bators (1949), Curt Kirkwood of The Meat Puppets (1960), Shaggy (1968), Zac Hanson of Hanson (1985)
October 23: Johnny Carroll (1937), songwriter Ellie Greenwich (1939), Charlie Foxx of Charlie & Inez Foxx (1939), Freddie Marsden of Gerry & The Pacemakers (1940), Greg Ridley of Spooky Tooth/Humble Pie (1943), Barbara Hawkins of The Dixie Cups (1943), Pauline Black of The Selector (1953), Dwight Yoakam (1954), rock parodist “Weird Al” Yankovic (1959), Take 6’s David Thomas (1966), Shelby Lynne (1968)
October 24: blues harpist Sonny Terry (1911), jump blues shouter Willie Mabon (1925), contemporary composer George Crumb (1929), The Big Bopper aka J.P. Richardson (1930), former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman born William Perks (1936), Jerry Edmonton of Steppenwolf (1946), Dale Griffin of Mott the Hoople (1950), Speech of Arrested Development (1968), Silverchair’s Ben Gillies (1979), Monica (1980)
October 25: “Waltz King” Johann Strauss (1825), Georges “Carmen” Bizet (1838), Minnie Pearl born Sarah Ophelia Colley (1912), Helen “I Am Woman” Reddy (1942), Jon Anderson of Yes (1944), John Hall of Orleans (1947), Glen Tipton of Judas Priest (1948), Paul Hancox of Chicken Shack (1950), Matthias Jabs of The Scorpions (1956), Christina Amphlett of Divinyls (1960), Red Hot Chili Pepper Chad Smith (1962), Ed Robertson of Barenaked Ladies (1970), Jerome Jones of Immature (1981)
Departures
October 19: rock journalist Greg Shaw (2004), Glen Buxton (1997), soul singer Wade Flemons (1993), Level 42 guitarist Alan Murphy (1989), Son House (1988)
October 20: Merle Travis (1983), Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, and Cassie Gaines–all of Lynyrd Skynyrd (1977)
October 21: Elliot Smith (2003), Henry Vestine of Canned Heat (1997), Blind Melon singer Shannon Hoon (1995), Bill Black (1965), Jay Perkins, brother of Carl (1958)
October 22: jazz pianist-vocalist Shirley Horn (2005), album cover artist Reverend Howard Finster (2001), Vagabonds guitarist Robert E. True (1998), sideman and brother of Benny Goodman, Harry Goodman (1997), producer Jimmy Miller (1994), Ewan MacColl (1989), Jane Dornacker of The Tubes (1986), crooner Tommy Edwards (1969), pianist Walter Davis (1963)
October 23: singer Ted Taylor (1988), flatpicker Merle Watson (1985), “Mother” Maybelle Carter of The Carter Family (1978), Leonard Lee (1976), David Box (1964), singer Joe Henderson (1964), Al Jolson (1950)
October 24: album cover illustrator Joe Henderson (1964)
October 25: BBC DJ John Peel (2004), George Lee of Ruby and the Romantics (1994), bassist Howard Blauvelt (1993), Roger “King of the Road” Miller (1992), promoter Bill Graham (1991), Margo Sylvia (1991), Johnnie Richardson (1988), sax honker Willis “Gatortail” Jackson (1987), Gary Holton of The Heavy Metal Kids (1985)