1967 - The Doors released their self-titled debut album The Doors. A tremendous debut album, and indeed one of the best first-time outings in rock history, introducing the band's fusion of rock, blues, classical, jazz, and poetry with a knockout punch. The lean, spidery guitar and organ riffs interweave with a hypnotic menace, providing a seductive backdrop for Jim Morrison's captivating vocals and probing prose. "Light My Fire" was the cut that topped the charts and established the group as stars, but most of the rest of the album is just as impressive.
The Doors credit the success of the album to being able to work the songs out live at the Whisky a Go Go in West Hollywood and the London Fog nightclub on the Sunset Strip. The album was recorded at Sunset Sound Studios in Hollywood, California over six days.
1972 - Yes releases "Roundabout." This was Yes' breakthrough hit. The album version runs 8:29, but it was edited to 3:27 for release as a single, which climbed to #13 on the US Hot 100, giving the band their biggest hit until they eclipsed it with "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" in 1983.
Awed by the scenery, Jon Anderson came up with lyrics like "Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there," as the mountains would disappear into the clouds. The lake mentioned in this song ("In and around the lake...") is Loch Ness, No mention of Nessie...
1970 - The Beatles (without John Lennon) re-record vocals and a new guitar solo on the Paul McCartney song 'Let It Be' at Studio Two, EMI Studios, London. This session will be the final studio appearance for The Beatles, as a group. (The final date that all four of The Beatles were in the studio together is August 20, 1969).
1975 - Elton John started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with his version of The Beatles 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds'. His third US No.1, the song featured John Lennon on guitar, billed as “the reggae guitars of Dr. Winston O’Boogie.” It was recorded in the foothills above Nederland at Caribou Ranch Studios.
2024 - The biggest-selling vinyl album of 2023 by a British act was Rolling Stones' Hackney Diamonds. The first album of original material by the Rolling Stones since 2005's A Bigger Bang, Hackney Diamonds reached No.1 in 20 countries and features guest contributions from Elton John, Lady Gaga, Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, former Stones bassist Bill Wyman and the dearly departed Charlie Watts.
Birthdays:
Soul singer Arthur Conley was born today in 1946.
John McLaughlin of Mahavishnu Orchestra is 82. Prior to the Mahavishnu Orchestra, in the 1960s, he played with Alexis Korner, Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, the Graham Bond Organisation and Brian Auger. In 1969 he moved to New York to join Tony Williams' Lifetime. Jeff Beck called McLaughlin ‘the best guitarist alive’.
Bernard Sumner is 68. Sumner is best-known for the bands he founded (Joy Division in 1976 and New Order in 1980) but has participated in other projects as well. Sumner was an early force in several areas, including the post-punk, synthpop, and techno music scenes, as well as their various related genres, and was an early influence on the Manchester music scene that presaged the "Madchester" movement of the late 1980s.
Wilco's Nels Cline is 68.
Michael Stipe of R.E.M. is 64. As the frontman for R.E.M., Michael Stipe transformed himself from enigmatic cult hero into mainstream icon. Famed for his confoundingly opaque lyrics and notoriously mumbled delivery, the once-introverted Stipe translated his growing fame into an outlet to champion his social and political concerns, emerging as one of popular music's most respected figures, as well as the acknowledged forefather of the alternative rock movement. (Photo credit should read MAURICIO DUENAS/AFP via Getty Images)
Mark Hollis, was born on this day in 1955.. He achieved commercial success and critical acclaim in the 1980s and 1990s as the co-founder, lead singer and principal songwriter of the band Talk Talk. Hollis wrote or co-wrote most of Talk Talk's music, including hits like 'It's My Life' and 'Life's What You Make It'.
Beth Gibbons, singer and lyricist of Portishead, is 59. The trio's acclaimed version of trip-hop drew on the vocal jazz and pop of the past while reinventing it radically, and Gibbons' vocals -- which recalled bygone greats such as Nina Simone and Edith Piaf -- were a perfect fit for the group's postmodern mystique.
R.I.P.:
2016 - Music entrepreneur, film producer and impresario, Robert Stigwood died aged 81. He was best known for managing Cream and the Bee Gees, theatrical productions like Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar and film productions including the hugely successful Grease and Saturday Night Fever.
2011 - Gerry Rafferty, who had a huge solo hit with "Baker Street" and was also a member of Stealers Wheel (Stuck In The Middle With You), dies at age 63.
On This Day In Music History was sourced, pasted, copied, edited and occasionally woven together with my own crude prose from This Day in Music, Song Facts, Allmusic, and Wikipedia.
KBCO