This is the week that was in matters musical …
1958, the first stereo records and phonographs hit the marketplace … demo LPs simulating planes taking off and the sound of ping-pong balls caroming between the left and right speakers are all the rage …
1960, Nancy Sinatra weds pop singer Tommy Sands … in five years Sands run out on the dissolving marriage … Nancy dons her boots and walks … the FCC bans payola, the pervasive practice of record companies making payments to radio DJs to spin their releases … the practice resurges four decades later and New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer collects hefty fines from all the major labels for engaging in the pay-to-play game …
1963, first record companies forced their artists to cash in on The Twist craze, then the surf music boom … and now Muddy Waters is recording Muddy Waters: Folk Singer for Chess Records at Tel Mar Studios in Chicago … helping Muddy connect with his folkier side are Buddy Guy on second acoustic guitar, Clifton James on drums, and Chess stalwart Willie Dixon on bass … a folk album in name only, the tunes are mostly written by Muddy and/or Willie and include unplugged blues classics like “Good Morning Little School Girl” … in 1968, Chess will subject Muddy to recording a “psychedelic” album with funk session men and wah-wah pedals … Electric Mud features Muddy essaying his way through The Rolling Stones’ “Let’s Spend The Night Together” … how about that for acknowledging your roots? … what’s next? … Otis Redding recording “Satisfaction?” …
1964, Rod Stewart cuts his first single—the blues chestnut “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” … a pair of enterprising Beatles fans pack themselves into a carton marked “Beatles Fan Mail” and have it delivered to the Baltimore Civic Center where the Fab Four are appearing … their plot is foiled when the girls are discovered by guards checking deliveries …
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 … interesting how different people deal with disappointment …
1968, Roy Orbison’s home in Hendersonville, Tennessee, burns down while he’s touring England … his two eldest sons die in the fire …
1969, during Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s set at the Big Sur Festival a yahoo in the crowd heckles the band for being rich rock stars … Stills, wearing a flamboyant fur coat, leaps off the stage, chases the heckler down, and administers a pounding while from the stage Crosby pleads for Peace and love, peace and love
… Stills gets back onstage and reflects, Y’know, we think about what that guy was saying, and we look at these coats and these pretty guitars and fancy cars and say, ‘Wow man, what am I doin’?’
… apparently, Still’s water runs deep …
1970, from the One-Hit Wonders Department: the good timey, washboard and jug band sound of Mungo Jerry reaches #3 on the U.S. pop charts with their debut single “In The Summertime” … Mungomania briefly takes hold of the U.K. as the band shuffles its way to 10 top singles … but the U.S. quickly tires of the shtick … singer Ray Dorset finally calls it quits later in the ’70s …
1978, The Grateful Dead do a three-night stand at the Son Et Lumiere Theater in Giza, Egypt with the Great Pyramids as a backdrop … proving that eventually, what happens in Egypt winds up in Vegas …
1981, Pink Floyd begins production on the film version of The Wall …
1984, the burgeoning MTV network holds its first Video Music Awards ceremony at New York’s Radio City Music Hall … the show is co-hosted by Bette Midler and Dan Aykroyd and honors the top music videos of the year … winners are awarded Moon Man trophies that depict an astronaut with an American flag, one of the network’s earliest icons …
1991, in a publicity stunt, Alice Cooper sells copies of his new album Hey Stoopid in New York’s Times Square for 99 cents a pop … smart …
1995, Paul McCartney’s hand-written lyrics to the Beatles’ classic “Getting Better” sell for a cool quarter-million dollars at a Sotheby’s auction …
1996, Wal-Mart refuses to carry Sheryl Crow’s second album because the song “Love is a Good Thing” includes the lyrics, “Watch out sister/Watch out brother/Watch our children as they kill each other/With a gun they bought at the Wal-Mart discount stores” … rumors that Wal-Mart employees started a band called Discounting Crows are unfounded …
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, the soundtrack for Almost Famous is released … it’s notable for including four vintage Led Zeppelin tracks—a first for any soundtrack … Robert Plant and Jimmy Page agree to the tunes’ inclusion after falling in love with Cameron Crowe’s filmed semi-autobiographical remembrance of a teenaged rock journalist in the ’70s … however, Page/Plant don’t allow Crowe to use “Stairway to Heaven” for a scene in the theatrical release … in the subsequent director’s cut DVD version, Crowe shows the deleted scene and instructs viewers to cue up their CDs of “Stairway” and wait for the onscreen countdown to press play so the scene can be experienced the way Crowe intended it, as the actors respond to the lyrics and musical changes in the song …
2003, The Pixies announce that band members have buried the hatchet and will embark on a reunion tour in 2004 … the Pixies dust the competition, going on to huge success in the face of a lackluster touring season …
2004, a jet-lagged Elton John, set upon by Taiwanese paparazzi, has a hissy fit calling them rude, vile pigs!
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2005, Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, versatile blues, cajun, jazz, and R&B guitarist, vocalist, and fiddler, dies in Baton Rouge at his brother’s house after leaving his home in Slidell, LA, due to Hurricane Katrina … Britney Spears gives birth to a baby boy by Cesarean section at the UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, California, with her backup dancer and beau Kevin Federline by her side … Sony BMG and EMI manage to further alienate music buyers by incorporating copy-protection software that’s incompatible with the iPod, the world’s most popular MP3 player … some of the releases affected are by artists such as The Dave Matthews Band, Switchfoot, and Foo Fighters …
2006, Paul McCartney agrees to donate $3 million to Adopt-a-Minefield after having backed out of playing a benefit for the charity hosted by his estranged wife Heather Mills … apparently, Pat Benetar was right, love is a battlefield … after being found guilty of tax evasion, the IRS orders Ron Isley to pay $3.1 million in delinquent taxes and sentences him to 37 months in prison … the 65-year-old Isley, who is rebounding from kidney cancer and a stroke, will probably do his time in a federal prison hospital … Linda Ronstadt cancels the balance of her 2006 tour schedule after undergoing surgery for an unspecified condition … a documentary about Kurt Cobain is debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival … titled Kurt Cobain: About a Son, the film is based on more than 25 hours of audio interviews with the Nirvana frontman recorded for a biography that was scratched following Cobain’s suicide in 1994 … filmmaker AJ Schnack edited down the tapes in which the troubled Cobain recalls his childhood, domestic troubles, and the downside of fame, matching them up with newly-created stills of places significant to Cobain … Athens, Georgia, music fans get an unexpected thrill when R.E.M. shows up unannounced at a fundraiser at the 40 Watt Club … drummer Bill Berry, who split the band in 1997 to become a gentleman farmer, decides that being a rude rocker is more fun and rejoins his bandmates to rip through a set of faves …
2009, Kanye West apologizes for interrupting Taylor Swift at the MTV Video Music Awards … despite the apology on his blog, West still writes, Beyonce’s video was the best of this decade!!! I’m Still Happy for Taylor!!!!
… it seems he isn’t the only one with this sentiment … Beyonce actually does win the video of the year for Single Ladies and promptly invites Swift to join her on stage during her acceptance speech … Swift says afterwards, I thought I couldn’t love Beyonce more, and then tonight happened.
… while Beyonce and Taylor Swift put on a show of solidarity, West is booed off the stage and subsequently asked to leave the show … numerous attendees tweet their disapproval during the awards: Katy Perry tweets Fuck Kanye, it’s like you stepped on a kitten,
while Pink writes, Kanye West is the biggest piece of shit on earth. Quote Me.
… this isn’t the first time West has rushed the stage at an awards ceremony to protest an award’s recipient … during the MTV Europe Music Awards in 2006, the rapper lost it after Justice v Simian’s We Are Your Friends scooped best video instead of West’s Touch the Sky …
Arrivals
September 8: composer Antonin Dvorak (1841), “The Singing Brakeman” Jimmie Rodgers (1897), Patsy Cline born Virginia Patterson Hensley (1932), soul sermonizer Joe Tex (1933), Dante Drowty of Dante & The Evergreens (1941), Brian Cole of The Association (1942), Cathy Jean Giordano of “Please Love Me Forever” fame (1945), Kelly Groucutt of E.L.O. (1945), Ron “Pigpen” McKernan of The Grateful Dead (1945), Atlanta Rhythm Section’s Dean Daughtry (1946), Benjamin Orr of The Cars (1947), David Steele of Fine Young Cannibals (1960), singer-songwriter Aimee Mann (1960), singer-songwriter Pink (1979)
September 9: Modern Records co-founder Jules Bihari (1913), Jacob Carey of The Flamingos (1926), jazz drummer Elvin Jones (1927), soul singer Otis Redding (1941), R&B/soul singer Inez Foxx (1942), Iron Butterfly’s Doug Ingle (1945), Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics (1952)
September 10: R&B shouter and early influence on rock & roll, Roy Brown (1925), vibist Roy Ayers (1940), Danny Hutton of Three Dog Night (1942), singer-virtuoso guitarist-composer Jose Feliciano (1945), Don Powell of Slade (1946), Barriemore Barlow of Jethro Tull (1949), Aerosmith’s Joe Perry (1950), Johnny Fingers of Boomtown Rats (1956), Siobhan Fahey of Bananarama (1958), Cracker’s Dave Lowrey (1960), Bush drummer Robin Goodridge (1966), rapper Big Daddy Kane, born Antonio Monterio Hardy (1968)
September 11: tenor saxman Bobby Fields (1928), Bernie Dwyer of Freddie And The Dreamers (1940), Mickey Hart (1943), fingerstyle guitar virtuoso Leo Kottke (1945), Tommy Shaw of STYX (1953), Jon Moss of Culture Club (1957), bassist Victor Wooten (1964), Moby born Richard Melville Hall (1965), singer-composer-bandleader-pianist-actor Harry Connick, Jr. (1967), Ludacris (1977)
September 12: singer-actor Maurice Chevalier (1888), blues singer Alger “Texas” Alexander (1900), country vocalist George Jones (1931), Warren Corbin of The Cleftones (1939), folk-blues singer Maria Muldaur, born Maria Grazia Rosa Domenica D’Amato (1943), suave soulman Barry White (1944), Gerry Beckley of America (1952), Rush drummer Neil Peart (1952), Barry Andrews of XTC (1956), Larry LaLonde of Primus (1968)
September 13: swing saxophonist Chu Berry (1908), bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe (1911), blues singer-pianist Charles Brown, who influenced Ray Charles (1922), Peruvian soprano Yma Sumac (1922), Mel “The Velvet Fog” Torme (1925), Joseph “Mr. Google Eyes” August, New Orleans R&B hitmaker (1931), Dave Quincy of Manfred Mann’s Earth Band (1939), Gene Page, producer-arranger for Diana Ross, Lionel Richie, and Whitney Houston (1940), David Clayton-Thomas of Blood, Sweat & Tears, born David Henry Thomsett (1941), Randy Jones of The Village People (1952), producer Don Was (1952), Dave Mustaine of Megadeth and Metallica (1961), Steve Perkins of Jane’s Addiction (1967), singer-songwriter Fiona Apple (1977)
September 14: composer Johann Michael Haydn, younger brother of Franz Joseph Haydn (1737), country DJ-songwriter Mae Boren Axton (wrote “Heartbreak Hotel”), mother of country star Hoyt Axton (1914), Archibald, born Leon T. Gross, influential New Orleans pianist (1916), influential Cuban bassist Israel “Cachao” Lopez (1918), Peter Cetera of Chicago (1944), Pete Agnew, bass player for Nazareth (1946), MC5 guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith (1948), Steve Gaines, guitarist with Lynyrd Skynyrd (1949), Paul Kossoff, guitarist with Free (1950), Barry Cowsill, drummer-bassist for The Cowsills (1954), Steve Berlin of Los Lobos (1955), A-Ha vocalist Morten Harket (1959), Everclear’s Craig Montoya (1970), Nevermore guitarist Jeff Loomis (1971)
Departures
September 8: songwriter Dick Heard (1998), Beatle publicist Derek Taylor (1997), Jack Vigliatura and Bill White of For Squirrels (1995), rapper Cowboy AKA Keith Wiggins of The Furious Five (1989)
September 9: singer-songwriter Lucio Battisti (1998), bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe (1996), Sandra Tilley of Martha Reeves & The Vandellas (1981)
September 10: Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown (2005), zydeco accordionist Beau Jocque (1999)
September 11: Raybeez AKA Raymond Barbieri of Warzone (1997), Peter Tosh (1987)
September 12: Nashville session drummer Kenny Buttrey (2004), Johnny Cash (2003), jazz tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine (2000), Abba producer Stig “Stikkan” Anderson (1997)
September 13: gangsta rapper Tupac Shakur (1996), R&B singer-songwriter Titus Turner (1984), Helen Humes, jazz chantreuse noted for her little-girl voice (1981), Conductor Leopold Stokowski (1977)
September 14: New Orleans R&B singer Johnny Adams (1998), blues singer Walter “Furry” Lewis of “John Henry” fame (1981)