1968 - Jimi Hendrix releases "All Along The Watchtower. This was written and originally recorded by Bob Dylan in 1967, but it was the Jimi Hendrix cover that made the song famous. Jimi Hendrix' version had a large impact on Dylan which made him make his own version "heavier."
1976 - Tom Waits releases Small Change. It features songs steeped in whiskey and atmosphere in which he alternately sings in his broken-beaned drunk's voice (now deeper and overtly influenced by Louis Armstrong) and recites jazzy poetry. It's as if Waits were determined to combine the Humphrey Bogart and Dooley Wilson characters from Casablanca with a dash of On the Road's Dean Moriarty to illuminate a dark world of bars and all-night diners.
1980 - During a North American tour, Bob Marley collapsed while jogging in New York's Central Park. After hospital tests, Marley was diagnosed with cancer. Two nights later, he played his final concert at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh.
1993 - Nirvana release In Utero. In Utero, of course, turned out to be their last record, and for some, it's hard not to hear it as Kurt Cobain's suicide note. Throughout it all, Cobain's songwriting is typically haunting, and its best moments rank among his finest work, delving into themes of self-doubt, fame, and personal turmoil.
1996 - Jack Gillis marries Meg White. He takes her last name, and the couple forms The White Stripes.
2004 - Green Day release American Idiot, their first album in four years. American Idiot is an unapologetic, unabashed rock opera, a form that Pete Townshend pioneered with Tommy, but Green Day doesn't use that for a blueprint as much as they use the Who's mini-opera "A Quick One, While He's Away," whose whirlwind succession of 90-second songs isn't only emulated on two song suites here, but provides the template for the larger 13-song cycle. In its musical muscle and sweeping, politically charged narrative, it's something of a masterpiece, and one of the few -- if not the only -- records of 2004 to convey what it feels like to live in the strange, bewildering America of the early 2000s. (Photo by Jo Hale/Getty Images)
Birthdays:
Leonard Cohen was born today in 1934. He passed away in 2016. One of the most fascinating and enigmatic -- if not the most successful -- singer/songwriters of the late '60s, Leonard Cohen retained an audience across six decades of music-making, interrupted by various digressions into personal and creative exploration, all of which have only added to the mystique surrounding him. Second only to Bob Dylan (and perhaps Paul Simon), he commanded the attention of critics and younger musicians more firmly than any other musical figure from the '60s who continued to work in the 21st century, which is all the more remarkable an achievement for someone who didn't even aspire to a musical career until he was in his thirties.
Don Felder of the Eagles is 76. Having already established himself on both coasts as a seasoned session player and touring guitarist, Don Felder made his debut as a member of the Eagles in 1974, bringing his influence and fluid rock chops to some of band's best-known material. Joining Glenn Frey and later Joe Walsh, Felder was part of one of rock & roll's great guitar batteries whose signature harmonic sound -- particularly on the Felder-penned "Hotel California" -- helped usher in the Eagles' most commercially successful era.
Liam Gallagher is 51. Liam Gallagher achieved both fame and notoriety as the lead singer of Oasis, the band who defined Brit-pop in the 1990s. By the early 2000s, Gallagher began stepping out of the shadow of his brother Noel (the songwriter who penned most of Oasis' hits), contributing original tunes to the band starting with the 2003 single "Songbird." The siblings split in 2009, leading Liam to take the remaining members of Oasis to form Beady Eye. Once that group ran its course, Gallagher launched a solo career in 2017
On this Day In Music History was sourced from This Day in Music, Allmusic, and Wikipedia.
KBCO