1966 - Rubber Soul becomes The Beatles' seventh #1 US album. It stays at the top for six weeks. John Lennon said, “'Rubber Soul' was the pot album and 'Revolver' was the acid”.
1968 - Stax Records releases Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" and Sam & Dave's "I Thank You." Sadly Otis would died shortly after. ZZ Top and Bonnie Raitt would cover the later.
2016 - David Bowie's Blackstar album is released on his 69th birthday. When Bowie dies two days later, it becomes clear that his ruminations on mortality are his parting words.
Certainly, the luxurious ten-minute sprawl of "Blackstar" -- a two-part suite stitched together by string feints and ominous saxophone -- suggests Bowie isn't encumbered with commercial aspirations, but Blackstar neither alienates nor does it wander into uncharted territory.
Fittingly, the music itself is suspended in time, sometimes recalling the hard urban gloss of '70s prog -- Bowie's work-- and sometimes evoking the drum'n'bass dabbling of the '90s incarnation of the Thin White Duke, sounds that can still suggest a coming future, but in the context of this album these flourishes are the foundation of a persistent present.
Discussing the musician's decision to release his album so close to his death, his longtime producer Tony Visconti says: "He always did what he wanted to do. And he wanted to do it his way and he wanted to do it the best way. His death was no different from his life – a work of Art. He made Blackstar for us, his parting gift."
BIRTHDAYS:
(If you have the time, please check out my essay I wrote a few years back on the significance of Bowie and Elvis which I will post momentarily on this page.)
Elvis Presley was born on this day in 1935. Elvis Presley belongs on the short list of artists who changed the course of popular music in the 20th century. He may not have invented rock & roll, but he was indisputably its first rock star, a singer whose charisma was tightly intertwined with his natural talent for a combination that seemed combustible, sexy, and dangerous when Presley seized the imagination of America with four successive number one singles in 1956. He spent the next two decades near the top of the charts, weathering changes in fashion, occasional missteps, and comebacks as his music expanded and evolved. Throughout his career, he never abandoned the rock & roll he pioneered on his early singles for Sun Records, but he developed an effective counterpoint to his primal rockabilly by honing a rich, resonant ballad style while also delving into blues, country, and soul, progressions that came into sharp relief with his celebrated "comeback" in the late '60s.
He undeniably kick-started the rock & roll era, shaping the sound and attitudes of the last few decades of the 20th century in the process, but he also built a distinctive body of work that reflected the best of what American music has to offer.
David Bowie was born on this day in 1947. One of the greatest stars of the rock & roll era, David Bowie evaded easy categorization throughout his career, operating as the artiest rocker within the mainstream and the most accessible musician on the fringe. Bowie may have trafficked in ideas cultivated in the underground, but he was never quite an outsider as far as rock & roll was concerned. From long haired folky, to Ziggy, Aladdin Sane, Thin White Duke, Blue eyed, soul man...even after all these years, it seems like we are still trying to catch up with him. (Photo credit should read JORG CARSTENSEN/DPA/AFP via Getty Images)
Dame Shirley Veronica Bassey, known as Shirley Bassey is 87. Famous for singing the bond theme, "Goldfinger". Di you know a young Jimmy Page played guitar on it?
On This Day In Music History was sourced, copied, pasted. edited, and occasionally woven together with my own crude prose from Songfacts, Allmusic, Abby Road 90, and The Beatles Bible.
KBCO