1964 - After fourteen weeks at number one, The Beatles are finally pushed out of Billboard's top spot by 63-year-old Louis Armstrong's "Hello Dolly". When the song topped the Hot 100, Stachmo set a record for the oldest artist to ever have a number one song.
1969 - George Harrison released his second solo album Electronic Sound, which was the final release on Zapple Records, an offshoot of the Beatles' Apple Records. Hard as it is to believe, George Harrison, guitar picker, was also an electronic music pioneer, as these two lengthy, abstract tone poems for early-vintage Moog synthesizer reveal. It was one of the first electronic music albums by a rock musician, made at a time when the Moog was usually played by dedicated exponents of the technology.
Though scoffed at when they were released, these pieces can hold their own and when you consider that synthesizers were only capable of playing one note at a time and sounds could not be stored or recalled with the push of a button, the achievement becomes even more remarkable.
1974 - Bruce Springsteen's performance in Boston, Mass., inspired Rolling Stone critic (and Springsteen’s future manager) Jon Landau to write, "I have seen rock and roll's future, and his name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time." Bruce was opening for Bonnie Raitt.
1984 - Bruce Springsteen releases Dancing In the Dark. This was the last song written for Born In The U.S.A.. Springsteen wrote it after his manager, Jon Landau, demanded a hit single for the album. According to journalist Dave Marsh in the book Glory Days, Springsteen was not impressed with Landau's approach. "Look", he snarled, "I've written seventy songs. You want another one, you write it." Despite this reaction, Springsteen sat in his hotel room and wrote the song in a single night. It sums up his state of mind, his feeling of isolation after the success of his album The River, and his frustrations of trying to write a hit single.
1986 - Peter Gabriel's So was released. Peter Gabriel introduced his fifth studio album, So, with "Sledgehammer," an Otis Redding-inspired soul-pop raver that was easily his catchiest, happiest single to date. Needless to say, it was also his most accessible, and, in that sense it was a good introduction to So, the catchiest, happiest record he ever cut. There was also "Big Time," another colorful dance number; "Don't Give Up," a moving duet with Kate Bush; and "In Your Eyes," Gabriel's greatest love song, which achieved genuine classic status after being featured in Cameron Crowe's classic Say Anything. These all illustrated the strengths of the album: Gabriel's increased melodicism and ability to blend African music, jangly pop, and soul into his moody art rock. (Photo MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP via Getty Images)
1987 - The Grateful Dead shoot the video for "Touch Of Grey" after a concert in Monterey, California. After the show, the shoot is set up and the audience brought back in to watch two different performances of the song: one by the band and another by their skeleton likenesses - the "Dead Ringers." It's the first music video by the band, and it goes into rotation on MTV, giving the group their first hit single.
Birthdays:
Hank Snow was born today in 1914. One of Canada's greatest contributions to country music, Hank Snow was famous for his "traveling" songs. It's no wonder. At age 12, he ran away from his Nova Scotia home and joined the Merchant Marines, working as a cabin boy and laborer for four years. Once back on shore, he listened to Jimmie Rodgers records and started playing in public.
Snow played a formative role in Presley's early career, convincing the Grand Ole Opry to give the singer a chance in 1954.
William “Billy” Martin Joel is 75. Billy Joel is a New York icon who became one of the most successful singer/songwriters of the late 20th century. He first rose to success in the mid-'70s with a melodic piano-led pop sound that merged Beatlesque hooks with elements of rock, jazz, Tin Pan Alley, and even Broadway. A Long Island native with a powerful voice and knack for storytelling, Joel first made the pop charts with "Piano Man," a rousing barroom singalong with a bittersweet old-timey feel that became his signature song.
After that, starting with Turnstiles in 1976 and straight through to 1983's An Innocent Man, Joel released an impressive string of well received and commercially successful albums.
Richie Furay — founding member of Buffalo Springfield, Poco and The Souther, Hillman, Furay Band— is 80. A pioneering figure in the history of country rock, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter Richie Furay was a founding member of two important bands in the genre, Buffalo Springfield and Poco. Furay was also part of the country-rock supergroup the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, and in all of his projects, he showed off his warm, graceful vocals, his sturdy guitar work, and the down-to-earth, relatable emotions of his songwriting. An inductee into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
R.I.P.:
2020 - Rock pioneer Little Richard dies at the age of 87. Of the great artists from the first era of rock & roll, few were as powerful and exciting as Little Richard, and no one bested his magnetism and flamboyance. Blessed with a singularly forceful voice (his piercing "Whooooo!" is still one of the most eloquent screams in American music) and a rollicking piano style, Little Richard fused gospel, rhythm & blues, and boogie woogie into a sound that was purely electric, and he startled audiences with his flashy clothes, outrageous persona, and willingness to present a sexually ambiguous image at a time when such things were all but unknown in popular culture.
On This Day In Music History was sourced, curated, copied, pasted, edited, and occasionally woven together with my own crude prose, from This Day in Music, Allmusic, Music This Day, Song Facts and Wikipedia.
KBCO
#gratefuldead #brucespringsteen #LittleRichard #richiefuray #billyjoel #PeterGabriel