It happened this week

This is the week that was in matters musical …

1896, blueswoman Ida Cox is born in Toccoa, Georgia … her song from 1927 " ’Fore Day Creep" was recorded in 1972 by Humble Pie …

1951, Dan Randall of Fender comes up with a new name for their solidbody guitar: “Telecaster” … the original name “Broadcaster” is dropped after Gretsch complains they have a line of drums using that name … the name “Telecaster” is chosen because TV is becoming popular …

1956, Bill Haley & The Comets receive a $250,000 guarantee for 21 shows—an unprecedented amount in those days …

1963, The Beatles form Northern Music Publishing which eventually will fall into the hands of Michael Jackson …

1967, The Doors, Buffalo Springfield, and The Byrds join forces in an L.A. all-star concert to protest cops roughing up hippies on the Sunset Strip …

1968, Johnny Cash and June Carter marry at the First United Methodist Church in Franklin, Kentucky … a motorcade of Cadillacs carry Johnny, June, and the families to the small, private ceremony … Johnny’s best man is Merle Kilgore, who shares co-writing credits with June on “Ring of Fire,” the tune generally credited as a musical documentation of Johnny and June’s love affair … this same week, Frankie Lymon dies of a heroin overdose at the age of 26 … Lymon is often regarded as the first black teenage star … his 1956 hit “Why Do Fools Fall in Love” marked the apex of a career that promptly headed downhill …

1969, The Eagles’ Greatest Hits album became the first album in the U.S. to be certified platinum by the RIAA …

1970, The Jefferson Airplane is fined $1,000 for using profanity during a show in Oklahoma City …

1977, country blues guitarist Bukka White dies … born Booker T. Washington White, his main inspiration was Charley Patton … .Bukka left music in the 1930s to play semi-pro baseball and box … in 1937, he was imprisoned on an assault charge … he then escaped, cut some powerful sides for the Vocalion label, and was eventually recaptured … rediscovered by blues researchers in 1963, he made appearances at folk and blues festivals during the latter stages of his eventful life …

1978, The Eagles win Grammys for the Hotel California album and "New Kid In Town" single …

1983, Michael Jackson’s Thriller reaches #1 and stays there 37 weeks, selling over 40 million copies … it is the number-one album in all Western nations …

1987, Sly Stone goes down for letting illicit substances take him higher … two outstanding warrants on drug charges land him in the pokey in LA … by the end of the year he’ll be doing hard time on cocaine charges …

1989, Hard Rock/Metal is a Grammy category for the first time … in a class that includes heavyweight nominees Metallica, Jane’s Addiction, and Iggy Pop, the winner is (drum roll, please): Jethro Tull … a chorus of boos rains down from the public balconies and even some of the artists on the main floor join in … critics nearly unanimously lambast the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences voters who selected Tull, whose mix of classic English prog rock and jazz flute is the farthest thing from hard rock or metal …

1991, James Brown is released from a South Carolina prison after serving two years of a six-year sentence …

1992, Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love wed in Waikiki, Hawaii …

1995, for the first time in seven years, Bruce Springsteen performs live with the E Street Band in a New York City nightclub … the show is taped for a promotional video for Jonathan Demme’s film Murder Incorporated … former Led Zeppelin duo Jimmy Page and Robert Plant kick off a year-long world tour in Pensacola, Florida, supporting their No Quarter album …

1998, Elton John is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II … even though he is announced as "Sir John Elton," the singer is still enthusiastic about the honor, proclaiming "They don’t come any bigger than this." …

1999, The Bluebells—Patricia Holt, Sarah Dash, Nona Hendryx, and Cindy Birdsong of Patti LaBelle & the Bluebells—sing together for the first time in 31 years at The Rhythm & Blues Foundation Pioneer Awards in L.A. at which the group is honored …

2000, it is announced that pop princess Britney Spears will be releasing her own brand of bubble gum creatively named “Britney Spears CD Bubble Gum” … the product is a promotion for her upcoming tour … the manufacturer, Famous Fixins, will give part of the proceeds to The Giving Back Fund, a nonprofit that encourages celebrities to raise money for charities …

2003, Othar Turner, one of the last remaining and most well-known African-American fife-and-drum musicians, dies at the age of 93 in Gravel Springs, Mississippi … fife-and-drum bands were a significant influence of early blues …

2004, shock jock Howard Stern is suspended indefinitely from Clear Channel radio station broadcasts following listeners objections to Stern’s frequently explicit subject matter he uses on his show and the R-rated language … these complaints culminate in Clear Channel prez John Hogan publicly demanding Stern drop the questionable content from his show … Stern demurs and is suspended …

2005, the legendary Muscle Shoals studio closes in Muscle Shoals, Alabama … artists such as the Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bob Seger recorded some of their biggest hits at the facility … the studio, owned since 1985 by indie blues label Malaco Records, is a victim of the computer recording boom …

2006, Alex Ostroksky has just returned from a Coldplay concert and is downloading the band’s latest album when he receives a 12:45 a.m. call from Apple informing him that his download marked the one-billionth song served up from the Apple iTunes website and that he has won an iMac, ten iPods, and an iTunes gift certificate worth $10,000 … the lucky 16-year-old recalls, "The guy on the phone started talking about Coldplay and I thought I was in trouble because I didn’t ask my mom for permission" … The National Museum of American History mounts an exhibit titled "Hip-Hop Won’t Stop: The Beat, The Rhymes, The Life" … on display are memorabilia such as Grandmaster Flash’s turntables …

2007, pop star Britney Spears spends a wacky week getting her head shaved and a new tattoo applied, then shows up in a cheesy blond wig before checking into an undisclosed rehab facility to deal with an undisclosed condition … the shaving incident occurs when Brit grabs an electric clipper at Esther’s Haircutting Studio and gives herself the Sinead O’Connor treatment … in a matter of hours the salon’s proprietors have set up a website to sell off the hair together with the clipper, a can of Red Bull the popster drank from, and her cigarette lighter … sniffing a big payday, J.T. Tognozzi, co-owner of the salon says he expects to net a cool million … more than two months after his death, James Brown remains unburied while family members squabble over burial details … meanwhile an undisclosed agreement is reached on how DNA samples should be collected from the corpse … they are needed to resolve several paternity claims including the parentage of a child that his companion Tomi Rae Hynie says Brown fathered … though Hynie says she married Brown, the Godfather’s lawyers dispute that saying she was still married to another man when the alleged marriage took place …

And that was the week that was.

Arrivals:

February 21: Andres Segovia (1893), Guy Mitchell aka Al Cernik (1927), Nina Simone (1933), Bobby Charles (1938), David Geffen (1943), Talking Head Jerry Harrison (1949), Mary Chapin Carpenter (1958), Ranking Roger aka Roger Charlery of The English Beat (1961), Sublime’s Eric Wilson (1970), Charlotte Church (1986)

February 22: Frederic-Francois Chopin (1810), “Big Al” Sears (1910), Spade Cooley (1910), Ernie K-Doe aka Ernest Kador Jr. (1936), Bobby Hendricks of The Drifters (1937), Bradley Nowell of Sublime (1968)

February 23: George Frederic Handel (1685), Johnny Winter (1944), Poco’s Rusty Young (1946), Brad Whitford of Aerosmith (1952), Howard Jones (1955), Japan’s David Sylvian (1958), Michael Wilton of Queensryche (1962), keyboardist Robert Collins (1963), Nicki Tedesco (1971), Jeff Beres of Sister Hazel (1971), Lasse Johansson of The Cardigans (1973)

February 24: Enrico Caruso (1873), singer-songwriter Wandra Merrell (1923), George Harrison (1943 – until he was in his 40s he believed it was Feb. 25th), Paul Jones of Manfred Mann (1942), keyboard session man Nicky Hopkins (1944), drummer Butch McDade (1946), Lonnie Turner of the Steve Miller Band (1947), Michelle Shocked (1962)

February 25: blueswoman Ida Cox (1896), Sam Goody (1904), Faron Young (1932), Frank “Poncho” Sampedro of Crazy Horse (1949), Stewart “Woody” Wood of The Bay City Rollers (1957), Dennis Diken of The Smithereens (1957), The Alarm’s Mike Peters (1959)

February 26: Fats Domino (1928), Norman P. Rich of Billy Stewart’s band (1930), Johnny Cash (1932), Paul Cotton of Poco (1943), Bob “The Bear” Hite of Canned Heat (1943), Mitch Ryder (1945), Jonathan Cain of Journey (1950), Michael Bolton (1953), Bronski Beat’s John Jon (1961), Erykah Badu (1971)

February 27: Eddie Gray of Tommy James & The Shondells (1948), Neil Schon of Journey (1954), Adrian Smith of Iron Maiden (1957), Chili of TLC (1971), Jeremy Dean of Nine Days (1972), Josh Groban (1981)

Departures:

February 21: jazz guitarist Al Viola (2007), Mud singer Les Gray (2004), rockabilly singer Malcolm Yelvington (2001), English vocalist Ronnie Hilton (2001), Musical Youth bassist Patrick Waite (1993), DJ Murray “The K” Kaufman (1982), reggae singer Jacob Miller (1980), Janet Vogel, singer with The Skyliners (1980), Nolan Strong of The Diablos (1977)

February 22: guitarist John Fahey (2001), “Papa” John Creach (1994), Kermit Chandler of The Sheppards (1981), Florence Ballard of The Supremes (1976)

February 23: singer Donnie Brooks (2007), guitarist-keyboardist Bob Mayo (2004), Howie Epstein of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (2003), jazz critic Stanley Dance (1999), Melvin Franklin of The Temptations (1995)

February 24: Stax Records co-founder Estelle Axton (2004), Johnnie Ray (1990), blues pianist Memphis Slim aka John Len “Peter” Chatman (1988), vocalist Ty Hunter (1981)

February 25: folk singer Mark Spoelstra (2007), blues saxophonist A. C. Reed (2004), DJ William “Hoss” Allen (1997), guitarist and songwriter for the Marshall Tucker Band Toy Caldwell (1993)

February 26: lyricist Ben Raleigh (1997), Frank O’Keefe of The Outlaws (1995), Cornell Gunter of The Coasters (1990), bluesman Bukka White (1977), Sherman Garnes of Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers (1977), blues pianist Big Maceo (1953)

February 27: drummer Bobby Rosengarden (2007), Othar Turner (2003), Marlena Easley of The Orlons (1993)