This is the week that was in matters musical …
1906, the first Victrola phonograph, with wind-up drive and its own horn, is marketed by Victor Talking Machine Company in Camden, New Jersey, for $200 …
1938, one of the most-covered standards ever, "Ain’t Misbehavin’" by Fats Waller, Harry Brooks, and Andy Razaf is recorded by Waller, a master of stride piano …
1939, MGM releases The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland … the song “Over the Rainbow” will win the Oscar for best original song and later be covered by Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, Placido Domingo, Sarah Vaughan, Tommy Emmanuel, Norah Jones, Buckethead, and ukulele player Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, who sang a harmonized melody …
1958, Eddie Cochran’s biggest hit, “Summertime Blues,” enters Billboard’s Top 100, where it will peak at #18 and sell over a million copies … it will later be covered by such groups as Blue Cheer and The Who … the song was co-written with Cochran by manager-producer Jerry Capehart, who died this week in 1998 …
1965, The Turtles’ cover of Bob Dylan’s “It Ain’t Me Babe” enters the Top 40, becoming an important milestone in the emerging genre called folk-rock …
1967, Are You Experienced, the first album from The Jimi Hendrix Experience is unleashed in the United States … the cover shows a trio of frizzy-haired psychedelic dandies staring back at you in a distorted fisheye lens image … the liner notes offer the caution: “Be forewarned. Used to be an experience meant making you a bit older. This one makes you wider … Hendrix breaks the world into interesting fragments. Then reassembles it. You hear with new ears after being Experienced.”… The Beatles take a break from touring and recording to study transcendental meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Wales … the lads will later become disenchanted with the roly-poly Indian guru … while seeking their inner light, Beatles manager Brian Epstein dies in his London home from a mixture of alcohol and barbiturates …
1968, the MC5 (Motor City Five) is the only rock group to perform for protesters in Chicago’s Lincoln Park outside the Democratic National Convention … when police-protester interaction turns violent, tear gas is dispensed and heads are busted … the band is signed to Elektra records a few months later, releasing their debut album recorded live and featuring the now-classic “Kick Out the Jams” … The Beatles new single is the first on their new Apple label … the B-side is “Revolution,” a rockin’ electric version of an acoustic song The Beatles had recorded for the The White Album … the A-side “Hey Jude,” features Paul pounding away at the old Johanna and shouting ad libs throughout the four minutes of na-na-na chorusing …
1969, the movie Alice’s Restaurant, based on the 18-minute, mostly autobiographical Arlo Guthrie recording of the same name, is released … Arlo Guthrie plays himself … Officer Obie is played by himself, William Obanhein, of Stockbridge, Massachusetts …
1970, Duane Allman begins sessions as a member of Derek & The Dominos … Eric Clapton praises Allman as the catalyst in a double-album project, Layla, And Other Assorted Love Songs, that is completed in only 10 days …
1971, Who’s Next from The Who hits the record racks in the UK … many consider it not only their finest album, with first-rate songwriting, performances, and sound, it’s also named as one of the best albums of all time … the album cover shows the band just after having apparently relieved themselves on a concrete monolith in the middle of a slag heap … photographer Ethan Russell later revealed rainwater was used as a substitute when some band members couldn’t summon up enough pee …
1975, Queen begins recording “Bohemian Rhapsody” at Rockfield Studio One in Monmouth, Wales … altogether, five studios will be used, making it one of the most expensive singles ever … the 30-second opera portion takes three weeks to record with 180 overdubbed voices … the vocal harmony parts are duplicated so many times the original vocal parts are eight generations down … the original 24-track tape becomes so worn it has to be copied to a fresh tape …
1978, The Pretenders, led by Chrissie Hynde, play their first live gig in Wakefield in the UK, opening for the Strangeways …
1979, Gary Numan’s single “Cars” hits the chart road, reaching #9 in the USA and #1 in England …
1981, the inaugural LP from The Replacements is “Sorry, Ma, I Forgot To Take Out The Trash” … the Minneapolis rockers’ main vocalist-songwriter Paul Westerberg pens such titles as “I Bought A Headache,” “Shiftless When Idle,” and “Kick Your Door Down” … the ‘Mats stage show often features shambling, ragged, spur-of-the-moment cover songs … this who-gives-a-s**t punk attitude endears them to the faithful …
1987, the movie Dirty Dancing is released … its soundtrack album is a bestseller, yielding what will become a karaoke classic, “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” …
1990, the world of rock and modern blues takes a big hit when Stevie Ray Vaughan is killed in a Wisconsin helicopter crash that also takes the lives of three members of Eric Clapton’s entourage … a Nevada court exonerates heavy metal band Judas Priest in a $6.2 million civil suit filed by the parents of two youths who shot themselves allegedly as a result of listening to the band’s records …
1995, singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett loses control of his plane on takeoff from Nantucket, Massachusetts … it flips and splashes down in the cold North Atlantic but Buffett is able to swim to safety …
2001, R&B star Aaliyah dies after the overloaded small plane she is on crashes on the Caribbean island of Abaco … 200 fans are ejected from the Charlotte, North Carolina, Ozzfest for alcohol and drug use … the show started at around 10 a.m. and the first group of partied-out attendees is ushered out just after noon, proving Ozzy Osbourne fans are not into pacing themselves …
2004, Queen becomes the first band to have a rock album legally released in Iran … the album is a compilation of the band’s hits and includes an insert with lyrics and production notes … Queen’s vocalist Freddie Mercury was of Iranian extraction …
2005, Robert Moog, inventor of the Moog synthesizer, dies from a brain tumor at the age of 71 … in 1964 he demonstrated his first synthesizer that used a keyboard and controller … by 1971, his company, Moog Music was producing the MiniMoog Model D, one of the first portable synths that soon will be a standard part of the keyboard array of artists such as Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman …
2006, Aerosmith bassist Tom Hamilton undergoes treatment for throat cancer, forcing him to sit out the first half of the band’s Route of All Evil Tour, the first time he has missed any shows in the band’s history … longtime band friend David Hull fills in until his return … in an interview with Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan disses modern recording methods saying, “I don’t know anybody who’s made a record that sounds decent in the past 20 years, really.” … responding to the question of illegal music downloads, he says, “Well, why not? It ain’t worth nothing anyway. You listen to these modern records, they’re atrocious, they have sound all over them. There’s no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like … static.” …
2007, now you can call him “Dr. May” … Queen guitarist Brian May earns his PhD in astronomy from London’s Imperial College … May handed in his 48,000-word doctoral thesis, “Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud,” earlier in the month—36 years after he started it—and then took a three-hour oral exam … May already has two honorary doctorates … The Stones wrap their Bigger Bang tour having grossed $558 million, eclipsing the record formerly held by U2’s 2005 Vertigo tour that brought in a paltry $389 million … commenting on the end of the long-running tour, Mick Jagger acknowledges, “I’m sort of glad it’s done. I need to do some resting”… British neo-soul singer Amy Winehouse postpones her planned U.S. tour three weeks before the kickoff … word has it she needs to kick alcohol and drug dependencies …
And that was the week that was.
Arrivals:
August 21: William “Count” Basie (1904), big-band singer Savannah Churchill (1920), gospel singer Clara Ward (1924), songwriter Carolyn Leigh (1926), Kenny Rogers (1938), country picker James Burton (1939), Harold W. Reid of The Statler Brothers (1939), Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple (1952), Steve Smith of Journey (1954), Joe Strummer of The Clash (1955), Budgie—born Pete Clark—of Siouxsie and the Banshees (1957), Kim Sledge of Sister Sledge (1958), Liam Howlett of Prodigy (1971)
August 22: Claude Debussy (1862), classic blues singer Addie “Sweet Peas” Spivey (1910), pianist and bandleader Sonny Thompson (1916), John Lee Hooker (1917), Carolina Slim, born Edward P. Harris (1923), Bob Flanigan of The Four Freshmen (1926), producer Jerry Capehart (1928), Freddie Milano of The Belmonts (1939), Jackie De Shannon (1944), Donna Godchaux of The Grateful Dead (1947), Teresa Davis of The Emotions (1950), country chirper and writer Holly Dunn (1957), Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid (1958), Debbi Peterson of The Bangles (1961), Roland Orzabal of Tears For Fears (1961), Tori Amos (1963), James DeBarge of DeBarge (1963), Layne Staley of Alice in Chains (1967), Matchbox 20’s Paul Douchette (1972), Howie Dorough of Backstreet Boys (1973)
August 23: dancer Gene Kelly (1912), country star Tex Williams (1917), The Drifters’ Rudy Lewis (1936), Jamaican producer Bunny Lee (1941), Ramon Phillips of The Nashville Teens (1941), Keith Moon (1947), Rick Springfield (1949), Shadows of Knight’s Jim Sohns (1949), Jim Jamison of Survivor (1951), Steve Clark of Def Leppard (1960), Dean DeLeo of the Stone Temple Pilots (1961), Colin Angus of The Shamen (1961), The Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder (1962)
August 24: bluesman and Elvis influence Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup (1905), jump-blues shouter Wynonie Harris (1915), country songwriter Fred Rose (1917), William Winfield of The Harptones (1929), David Frieberg of Quicksilver Messenger Service (1938), Mason “Classical Gas” Williams (1938), Ernest Wright of Little Anthony and the Imperials (1939), Procol Harum manager and pirate radio operator Tony Secunda (1940), Joe Chambers of The Chambers Brothers (1942), soul singer Fontella Bass (1942), Jimmy Soul born James McCleese (1942), John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service (1943), Jim Capaldi of Traffic (1944), Malcolm Duncan of Average White Band (1945), Ken Hensley of Uriah Heep (1945), Heart’s Mike DeRosier (1951), Juan Nelson (1958), Mark Bedford of Madness (1961), Pebbles, born Perri McKissack (1964)
August 25: Charlie Burse of The Memphis Jug Band (1901), composer Leonard Bernstein (1918), jazz reedman Wayne Shorter (1933), Walter Williams of The O’Jays (1942), jazz guitar phenom Pat Martino (1944), Tavares drummer Francis A. Donia (1945), Gene Simmons, born Chaim Witz (1949), Judas Priest vocalist Rob Halford (1951), Elvis Costello, born Declan McManus (1954), Billy Ray Cyrus (1961), Vivian Campbell of Def Leppard (1962), Mia Zapata of The Gits (1965), DJ Terminator X of Public Enemy (1966), country chirper Jo Dee Messina (1969)
August 26: jazz and blues shouter Jimmy “Mr. Five by Five” Rushing (1903), Chris Curtis of The Searchers (1941), Valerie Simpson of Ashford and Simpson (1948), Bill Rush of The Asbury Dukes (1952), Branford Marsalis (1960), Shirley Manson of Garbage (1966), Dan Vickrey of Counting Crows (1966), Adrian Young of No Doubt (1969)
August 27: bluegrass guitarist Carter Stanley (1925), harpist-keyboardist Alice Coltrane (1937), avant-garde guitarist Sonny Sharrock (1940), Daryl Dragon of Captain & Tennille (1942), Jeff Cook of Alabama (1949), Simon Kirke of Free and Bad Company (1949), Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson (1953), Glen Matlock of The Sex Pistols (1956), gospel powerhouse Yolanda Adams (1962), Tony Kanal of No Doubt (1970), rapper Ma$e (1977), John Siebles of Eve 6 (1979), R&B singer Mario (1986)
Departures:
August 21: Robert Moog (2005), Tarheel Slim, born Alden Bunn (1977), country guitarist Sam McGee (1975)
August 22: honky-tonk legend Floyd Tilman (2003), blues pianist Leonard “Baby Doo” Caston (1987), bluesman John Lee Granderson (1979)
August 23: high-note jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson (2006), Eleanor O. Guest, one of Gladys Knight’s Pips (1997), Skinny Puppy drummer Dwayne Goettell (1995), Broadway songwriter-director Oscar Hammerstein II (1960)
August 24: producer-arranger Gene Page (1998), Doug Stegmeyer, bassist for Billy Joel (1995), Jesse Bolian of The Artistics (1994), Gene Knight of The Showmen (1992), Motown drummer Larry Londin (1992), bluesman L.C. Greene (1985), trumpeter-pop singer Louis Prima (1978)
August 25: R&B star Aaliyah (2001), Ronnie White of The Miracles (1995), bandleader Stan Kenton (1979)
August 26: Laura Branigan (2004), Ronnie White of The Miracles (1995), zydeco squeezebox star Rockin’ Dopsie (1993), “Professor” Eddie Lusk (1992), honking sax man Jimmy Forrest (1980), Lee Hays of The Weavers (1981)
August 27: Stevie Ray Vaughan (1990), KRS-One rapper Scott LaRock (1987), Bob Schol of The MelloKings (1975), Beatles manager Brian Epstein (1967)