1970- Beck David Hansen (born Bek David Campbell) is 51 today. He rose to fame in the early 1990s with his experimental and lo-fi style, and became known for creating musical collages of wide-ranging genres. He has musically encompassed folk, funk, soul, hip hop, electronic, alternative rock, country, and psychedelia. He plays 12 instruments, including guitar, keyboard, banjo, sitar, drums, and more. The creativity is in his DNA, his mother is visual artist Bibbe Hansen and his father, Canadian arranger, composer, and conductor David Campbell. Bibbe grew up amid New York's Andy Warhol Factory art scene of the 1960s. His grandfather, artist Al Hansen, was a pioneer in the avant-garde Fluxus movement, along with being friends with Yoko Ono and John Cage. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)
1972 - Bill Withers' "Lean On Me" hits #1 in America. The song endures as a message of compassion and goodwill. Withers: "It's a rural song that translates across demographic lines. Who could argue with the fact that it would be nice to have somebody who really was that way? My experience was, there were people who were that way. They would help you out. Even in the rural South, there were people who would help you out even across racial lines.
1978 - After a disco-rific six months at #1, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack is finally bumped off the top spot by Gerry Rafferty's City To City. As Songfacts wrote: "But - like disco - nothing lasts forever, especially on the Billboard charts. Music fans are ready to leave their polyester at the discotheque and head to "Baker Street" for some jazz-infused rock courtesy of Gerry Rafferty's City To City. The album is Rafferty's second solo effort, but his first in six years because of legal issues with his former band, Stealers Wheel."
1981 - The Go-Go's released, Beauty and the Beat. The album sold in excess of 3 million copies, making it one of the most successful debut albums ever. It generated two hits that defined the era: the cool groove of “Our Lips Are Sealed” and the exuberant “We Got the Beat.” Sharp, clever, and catchy, explicitly drawing from the well of pre-Beatles ‘60s pop -- girl group harmonies, to be sure, but surf-rock echoes throughout -- but filtering it through the nervy energy of punk. This is infectiously cheerful pop, so hooky it’s sometimes easy to overlook how well-written these tunes are, but it’s the sturdiness of the songs that makes Beauty and the Beat a new wave classic.
Birthdays:
Andy Fletcher, founding member for Depeche Mode is 60.
Joan Osborne is 59.
Arctic Monkeys guitarist Jamie Cook is 36.
On This Day In Music History is sourced from This Day in Music, Song Facts, Allmusic and Wikipedia.