This is the week that was in matters musical…
1956, in the wake of Johnnie Ray’s success with “Just Walking in the Rain,” Sun Records releases a cover by The Prisonaires, a smooth-singing doo-wop group composed of Tennessee State Penitentiary inmates …
1962, The Beatles hit Abbey Road recording studio for the first time, recording “Love Me Do” in about 16 takes with drummer Andy White …
1965, an ad in Variety announces auditions for the new TV show The Monkees … would-be Monkees who fail to make the cut include Stephen Stills; Danny Hutton, later of Three Dog Night; songwriter Paul Williams; and Charles Manson …
1968, because of fears of street violence during the National Democratic Convention, The Rolling Stones’ “Street Fighting Man” is banned from airplay in Chicago …
1978, Who drummer Keith Moon succumbs to an overdose of the drug Heminevrin prescribed to combat his alcoholism … an autopsy reveals that he’d washed down 32 of the pills with champagne … his death occurs in the same apartment in which Mama Cass of The Mamas & The Papas met her demise in 1974 …
… at a Teddy Pendergrass show in New York called “For Women Only,” female concertgoers receive white chocolate lollipops in the shape of a teddy bear…
1990, Tom Fogerty, an original member of Creedence Clearwater Revival and brother of John, dies of tuberculosis this week at age 48 … he had parted from the band at the height of its success in 1971, a casualty of sibling rivalry … and although he recorded a number of albums on his own, he never scored a hit after his CCR days …
… across the pond, The Cure launches a pirate radio station beamed at London to publicize the release of the remix album Mixed Up… but the station will soon go off the air beset by technical difficulties and use of the powerful BBC signal to cover up its broadcasts …
1991, country music star Dottie West dies from internal injuries suffered in a car accident in the parking lot of The Grand Ole Opry… the crash occurred a few days earlier when an elderly neighbor, who was giving West a ride to work, lost control of the car …
1997, Pat Smear announces he will no longer be a Foo Fighter and that Franz Stahl will take his place …
1999, record mogul Sean “Puffy” Combs is ordered to attend an anger management class after being convicted of attacking the president of Interscope Records, Steve Stoute … lucky for Stoute the Puff man doesn’t shop at Wal-Mart …
2000, Rage Against the Machine bassist Timothy Commerford pleads guilty to charges of assault and disorderly conduct at the MTV Video Music Awards … while raging against Limp Bizkit’s acceptance of the award for Best Rock Video–which was coincidentally up against Rage’s video for “Sleep Now In The Fire”–Commerford climbed a 15-foot arch that was part of the stage set … stagehands and security swarmed the stage to extricate Tim, who would “sleep now in the slammer” …
2004, the 6th Circuit Court in Cincinnati rules that artists should pay for every sample they use … previously courts had held that as long as short samples could not be identified, licensing was unnecessary … in this new decision, the court, acknowledging other cases involving digital piracy says, “If you cannot pirate the whole sound recording, can you ‘lift’ or ‘sample’ something less than the whole? Our answer to that question is in the negative.” … ironically, a two-second sample of a Funkadelic record in NWA’s 100 Miles and Runnin is at the heart of the ruling … Funkadelic and Parliament leader and founder George Clinton has historically been supportive of sampling, having produced two albums titled Sample Some of Dis and Sample Some of Dat that permit remixers to use his music without legal considerations …
2006, in a Rolling Stone interview, Elton John reveals that he’s thinking about putting out a hip-hop album … “I want to work with Eminem, Pharrell, Kanye, and Snoop. We’ll see what happens. It could be a disaster.” … Rapper Master P debuts his new musical Uncle Willy’s Family, in Meridian, Mississippi … the show is semiautobiographical, focusing on a family that has to abandon its home in the face of Hurricane Katrina … to no one’s particular surprise, it’s revealed that Whitney Houston has separated from her husband of 14 years, Bobby Brown … the marriage was punctuated by drugs and domestic disturbances … on a more positive note, Lou Reed joins Jack White and his Raconteurs at the VMA Awards show in New York, pitching in on the vocals of “White Light/White Heat” …
2007, with just 7.4 million in album sales this week, Nielsen SoundScan reports the lowest numbers in the chart service’s history … only the High School Musical 2 soundtrack manages to move more than 50,000 units … just eight years earlier 27 albums moved that many … Lucinda Williams kicks off a novel tour in which she will play five nights each in New York and L.A. … each show will be devoted to one of her five studio albums in its entirety: her 1988 self-titled disc, Sweet Old World, Car Wheels on a Gravel Road, Essence, and World Without Tears …
2008, Oasis is mid-way through its headline set at the V Festival when a man runs from backstage and knocks Noel Gallagher to the ground … Security guards wrestle the attacker to the floor and drag him away with brother Liam in pursuit … after a 15-minute break, the band resumes its set to cheers from a 25,000-strong audience …
…and that was the week that was.
Arrivals:
September 2: Hugo Montenegro (1925), Sam Gooden (1939), Bobby Purify (1939), Rosalind Ashworth of Martha and The Vandellas (1943), Joe Simon (1943), Mik Kaminski of E.L.O. (1951), Simply Red’s Fritz McIntyre (1956), Steve Porcaro of Toto (1957) Jerry Augustyniak of 10,000 Maniacs (1958), Jonathan Segal of Camper Van Beethoven (1963), K-Ci Hailey of Jodeci (1969)
September 3: bluesman Memphis Slim born Peter Chatman (1915), Hank Thompson (1925), Freddie King (1934), Kenny Pickett (1942), Al Jardine of The Beach Boys (1943), Walter Scott (1943), Greg Leads (1944), George Biondi of Steppenwolf (1945), Thin Lizzy’s Eric Bell (1947), Don Brewer of Grand Funk Railroad (1948), Steve Jones of The Sex Pistols (1955), Jennifer Paige (1973)
September 4: “Lightning Bug” Rhodes, guitarist for Otis Redding and B.B. King (1939), lead singer George Lanuis of The Crescendos (1939), Merald Knight of Gladys Knight & The Pips (1942), fret wizard Danny Gatton (1945), Greg Elmore of Quicksilver Messenger Service (1946), Quicksilver Messenger Service’s Gary Duncan (1946), Ronald LaPread of The Commodores (1950), Muscle Shoals session guitarist Wayne Perkins (1951), Martin Chambers of the Pretenders (1952), Kim Thayil of Soundgarden (1960), Dan Miller of O-Town (1980), Beyoncé Knowles (1981)
September 5: Chicago blues pianist Sunnyland Slim (1907), doo-wopper Jimmy Springs of The Red Caps (1911), guitarist Willie Woods of Junior Walker & The Allstars (1936), singer-songwriter and Kingston Trio member John Stewart (1939), Al “Year of the Cat” Stewart (1945), Freddie Mercury of Queen (1946), Buddy Miles (1946), guitarist Clarence White born Cecil Ingram Connor (1946), singer-songwriter Loudon Wainright III (1947), David “Clem” Clempson of Humble Pie/Colosseum (1949), Terry Ellis of En Vogue (1966), Brad Wilk of Rage Against The Machine (1968), Dweezil Zappa (1969)
September 6: bluesman Jimmy Reed (1925), blues drummer Fred Below (1926), Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters (1943), Dave Bargeron of Blood, Sweat & Tears (1942), androgynous disco star Silvester aka Silvester James (1947), Perry Bamonte of The Cure (1960), Pal Waaktar of A-Ha (1961), CeCe Peniston (1969), Dolores O’Riordon of The Cranberries (1971), Nina Persson of The Cardigans (1974), Foxy Brown (1979)
September 7: Hank Williams (1923), tenor sax giant Sonny Rollins (1930), bluesman Little Milton (Campbell) (1934), Buddy Holly born Charles Hardin Holley (1936), Joe Negroni of Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers (1940), Continental Drift bassist Jim Gault (1943), Alfa Anderson of Chic (1946), disco diva Gloria Gaynor (1949), Chrissie Hynde (1951), session guitarist Chuck Beattie (1954), Brad Houser of Edie Brickell & New Bohemians (1960), Chris Acland of Lush (1966), Chad Sexton of 311 (1970), Eazy-E of N.W.A. (1973)
September 8: composer Antonin Dvorak (1841), “The Singing Brakeman” Jimmie Rodgers (1897), Western swing pioneer Milton Brown (1903), Modern Records co-founder Jules Bihari (1913), Patsy Cline born Virginia Patterson Hensley (1932), soul sermonizer Joe Tex (1933), Dante Drowty of Dante & The Evergreens (1941), Brian Cole of The Association (1944), Cathy Jean (1945), Kelly Groucutt of E.L.O. (1945), Ron “Pigpen” McKernan of The Grateful Dead (1945), Atlanta Rhythm Section’s Dean Daughtry (1946), David Steele of Fine Young Cannibals (1960)
Departures:
September 2: New York Metropolitan Opera impressario Sir Rudolf Bing (1997), composer Otto Luening (1996), violinist Cyril Reuben (1996), Ljuba Welitsch (1996)
September 3: Major Lance (1994), Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson (1970)
September 4: jazz saxophonist Charlie Barnet (1991), country singer Dottie West (1991)
September 5: swamp-boogie queen Katie Webster (1999), R&B pianist Sonny Knight (1998), conductor Georg Solti (1997), Charlie Charles, drummer for Ian Dury and the Blockheads (1990), Joe Negroni of Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers (1978), blues guitarist Joe Hill Louis (1957)
September 6: co-founder of Atari Teenage Riot, Carl Crack (2001), stand-up country bassist Roy Husky Jr. (1997), Tom Fogerty of CCR (1990), Josh White (1964)
September 7: Erma Franklin, sister of Aretha (2002), composer Niccolo Castiglioni (1996), Keith Moon (1978)
September 8: songwriter Dick Heard (1998), Beatle publicist Derek Taylor (1997), Jack Vigliatura and Bill White of For Squirrels (1996), rapper Cowboy AKA Keith Wiggins of The Furious Five (1989)