This is the week that was in matters musical …
1934, Laurens Hammond patents his electronic, pipeless organ … he uses a piano keyboard to activate the electronic circuits of devices called tone wheels … the famous B-3 organ weighs about 400 pounds, thereby ensuring that Hammond’s name is cursed by musicians forced to lug the heavy piece of furniture up staircases to gigs …
1945, future Creedence Clearwater Revival rhythm section members are born one day apart in the San Francisco Bay Area … drummer Doug Clifford is born April 24 in Palo Alto … bassist Stu Cook is born April 25 across the bay in Oakland …
1959, the second of two recording sessions for Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue takes place at Columbia Records 30th Street Studio in New York City … the group, which includes Cannonball Adderley on alto sax, John Coltrane on tenor, and pianist Bill Evans, records “Flamenco Sketches” and “All Blues” … the album goes on to become a classic, the one jazz album bought by people who normally aren’t jazz fans …
1962, Jerry Lee Lewis’ three-year-old son, Steve Allen Lewis, accidentally drowns in the swimming pool at the family home in Hernando, Mississippi …
1963, it’s an instrumental originally called “Stiletto” and is supposed to be the B-side for “Surfer Joe,” the debut single by The Surfaris … renamed “Wipe Out” it’s recorded in two takes and then becomes the A-side … the surf subculture flowers and its influence is felt far from the waves … in the landlocked Midwest, high-school boys prove their coolness by pounding out the drum solo with their bare hands on the nearest desk or cafeteria table …
1965, The Rolling Stones release their fourth album Aftermath … all of the songs are written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards … it’s Brian Jones, however, who adds musical color as he plays dulcimer on “Lady Jane,” marimbas on “Under My Thumb,” and sitar on “Mother’s Little Helper” …
1966, Ray Charles undergoes drug testing in Boston to see if he has managed to stay clean … it is part of a suspended sentence agreement stemming from his conviction for heroin and marijuana possession earlier in the year …
1967, in the Summer of Love with psychedelic the word of the day, the number-one song on the pop chart is “Something Stupid” by Nancy and Frank Sinatra … Janis Ian’s single “Society’s Child” languishes because of its controversial lyrics about an interracial relationship … that changes when conductor Leonard Bernstein features the song on his CBS-TV special about pop music … the record then climbs to #14 on the pop chart …
1969, a fire strikes at The Ash Grove, a Los Angeles folk-blues club … such performers as Ry Cooder, Canned Heat, the Chambers Brothers and Taj Mahal played their first gigs there … a who’s who of blues performers also played there … the Melrose Avenue club reopens after benefits from the regular performers … an arson fire strikes in 1971 and another arson fire in 1973 destroys the club … from the ashes (sorry) a new incarnation of the club opens on the Santa Monica Pier in 1996 …
1970, from the One Hit Wonders Department: “Spirit In The Sky” by Norman Greenbaum reaches number 3 on the pop chart … the quasi-religious tune is set to an infectious John Lee Hooker-style riff and the recording is used to awaken Apollo 13 astronauts on the way to the moon … Greenbaum’s previous group, Dr. West’s Medicine Show & Junk Band, went to number 52 on the hit parade with the jug band novelty tune “The Eggplant That Ate Chicago” … one staff member here still remembers listening to the 45 during free period in high school …
1974, singer Savannah Churchill dies after suffering for years from debilitating injuries she received after a drunk fell on top of her from a club balcony in 1956 …
1975, leader and chief songwriter of Badfinger, Pete Ham, who had just quit the band a week earlier and is despondent over his career, hangs himself in the garage/recording studio of his London home …
1978, Sandy Denny, the smooth and tender-voiced folk vocalist for Fairport Convention, dies after accidentally falling down a flight of stairs at a friend’s home … Sandy is known by fans of Led Zeppelin for recording a duet with Robert Plant on “The Battle of Evermore” from Zep’s fourth album …
1979, the film Rock ‘n’ Roll High School, featuring the Ramones, premieres in Los Angeles … originally the film was to be called Disco High (USA) …
1983, so what’s happened to Dexy’s Midnight Runners? … they’ve been stars in England for three years with four top ten hits … and now in the States they nab the top spot on the pop charts with “Come On Eileen” … apparently they keep changing group members and musical direction with every new album at the behest of leader Kevin Rowland … turns out this will be their only hit stateside …
1990, more than 750,000 people cram into Central Park in New York City to celebrate Earth Day … music is provided by Hall & Oates, Ben E. King, and The B-52’s …
1991, former Humble Pie and Small Faces vocalist-guitarist Steve Marriott dies in his Essex, England, home from smoke inhalation caused by a fire touched off by an unattended cigarette …
2002, singer Layne Staley of Alice in Chains is found dead in his apartment … the coroner estimates Staley died on April 5 from speedball (heroin + cocaine) overdose …
2003, Madonna’s website Madonna.com is hacked, with the hacker making her entire new album American Life available as free MP3 downloads …
2004, a grand jury concludes that there is sufficient evidence to bring child molestation charges against Michael Jackson … the King of Pop is due to be arraigned at the end of the month … his lawyer says Jackson will plead not guilty … Metallica squelches an Internet rumor that James Hetfield committed suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills … “contrary to what you may have read on message boards,” say the band, “James Hetfield is alive and doing extremely well” …
2006, just three months after remarrying his former wife Kim in January 2006, Eminem sues for divorce again … in the face of mounting financial problems, Michael Jackson agrees to sell his 50% share in the Sony/ATV publishing company that holds the rights to hundreds of Beatles songs as well as material by Dylan, Hank Williams, and others … the catalog is said to be worth $1 billion …
And that was the week that was.
Arrivals:
April 19: music school founder Augustus Juilliard (1836), Dickie “Flying Saucer” Goodman (1934), songwriter David Mook (1936), Alexis Korner of Blues Incorporated (1928), songwriter Bobby Russell (1940), Alan Price of the Animals (1942), Mark Volman of The Turtles (1944)
April 20: Johnny Tillotson (1939), Craig Frost of Grand Funk Railroad (1948), Luther Vandross (1951), Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater (1967), singer Stephen Marley, son of Bob (1972)
April 21: Eric Maresca, writer of Dion’s hit “The Wanderer” (1939), Iggy Pop born James Jewel Osterburg (1947), Robert Smith of The Cure (1959), Michael Timmins of Cowboy Junkies (1959), Johnny McElhone of Texas (1963)
April 22: Yehudi Menuhin (1916), Bull Moose Jackson (1919), Charles Mingus (1922), Glen Campbell (1936), session drummer Howard Wyeth (1944), Frankie Garcia of Cannibal and the Headhunters (1946), Peter Frampton (1950), Paul Carrack of Squeeze (1951), Silverchair’s Daniel Johns (1979)
April 23: Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873), Roy Orbison (1936), Ray Peterson (1939), King Crimson violinist David Cross (1949), fusion drummer Narada Michael Walden (1952), Steve Clark of Def Leppard (1960), Stan Frazier of Sugar Ray (1969), rapper Lil Eazy-E (1984)
April 24: Ed Roberts of Ruby and the Romantics (1936), Joe Henderson (1937), Barbra Streisand (1942), Richard Sterban of the Oak Ridge Boys (1943), Doug Clifford (1945), Jethro Tull bassist Glen Cornick (1947), Preston Ritter of The Electric Prunes (1949), David J. Haskins of Love and Rockets (1957), Boris Williams of The Cure (1958), Robert Gould of Faith No More (1963), Hole’s Patty Schemel (1967), Aaron Comess of Spin Doctors (1968), Kelly Clarkson (1982), Tyson Ritter, lead singer-bassist with All-American Rejects (1984)
April 25: radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi (1874), R&B sax honker Earl Bostic (1913), Ella Fitzgerald (1918), Chess records session drummer Earl Phillips (1920), Albert King (1923), Vassar Clements (1928), Willis “Gator” Jackson (1932), songwriter Jerry Leiber (1933), Bobby Rydell (1942), Stu Cook (1945), Bjorn Ulveas of ABBA (1945), Gary “Dream Weaver” Wright (1945), drummer Steve Ferrone of Average White Band (1950), Roger Taylor of Duran Duran (1960), Chris Mars of The Replacements (1961), Erasure’s Andy Bell (1964), Eric Avery of Jane’s Addiction (1965), T-Boz of TLC (1970), Jose Pasillas of Incubus (1976), Jacob Underwood of O-Town (1980)
Departures:
April 19: jazz drummer Stan Levey (2005), jazz bassist Niels-Henning Orsted Pederson (2005), metal band guitarist Bryan Ottoson (2005), Layne Staley of Alice in Chains (2002), “Texas Flood” songwriter Larry Davis (1994), saxophonist Steve Douglas (1993), sax man Clifford Scott (1993), R&B singer Willie Mabon (1985), Savannah Churchill (1974)
April 20: bebop saxist Teddy Edwards (2003), trumpeter Walter Fuller (2003), singer Alan Dale (2002), composer-conductor Giuseppi Sinopoli (2001), producer Jose Rodriguez (1996), bluesman Johnny Shines (1992), Steve Marriott (1991)
April 21: Nina Simone (2003), Neal Matthews, Jr. of the Jordanaires (2000), Sandy Denny (1978), ska trombonist Don Drummond (1971), slide guitarist Earl Hooker (1970)
April 22: songwriter Felice Bryant (2003), George Lanuid of The Crescendos (1996), pianist Earl “Fatha” Hines (1983)
April 23: jazz bassist Jimmy Woode (2005), New York Dolls guitarist Johnny Thunders (1991), flamboyant R&B pianist Esquerita (1986), pianist Red Garland (1984), Peter Ham of Badfinger (1975), Motown drummer William “Benny” Benjamin (1969)
April 24: singer Al Hibbler (2001)
April 25: rockabilly pioneer Hasil Adkins (2005), Roger Troutman and Larry Troutman (1999), rapper Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes (2002), Brian McLeod of Chilliwack (1992), saxophonist Dexter Gordon (1990), Carolyn Franklin (1988), masterful blues pianist Otis Spann (1970)