1972 - Aretha Franklin released Young, Gifted and Black, it was her eighteenth studio album. This is quite honestly an album that merits play from beginning to end. You have the moving and grooving to the songs that slow down the tempo and are more likely to relax than rouse. Highlights: the funky "Rock Steady", the ballad "Day Dreaming" and then there's the covers from Otis, The Beatles, Elton John, Delfonics, and Nina Simone.
And then there's the band, Billy Preston, Donny Hathaway, Dr. John, The Memphis Horns, the Sweet Sensations, and Aretha's sisters Carolyn and Erma rounding out vocals. (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
1972 - Paul Simon released his self-titled album. This is where he started to indulged his musical wander lust. It started with the opening cut, "Mother and Child Reunion", recorded in Jamaica, heralding the rise of reggae. From there, it was off to Paris for a track in South American style and a rambling story of a fisherman's son, "Duncan". "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" is delivered with a Latin swing. Throughout this musical melting pot, Simon's lyrics remain witty and quotable.
1979 - The Clash released their first single in the U.S. with "I Fought The Law" (written by Sonny Curtis of Buddy Holly's Crickets, later popularized in a version by the Bobby Fuller Four). Joe Strummer and Mick Jones were inspired to learn the song after hearing the Bobby Fuller version on a jukebox owned by a San Francisco recording studio where they had been recording overdubs for their second album. This cover version helped gain the Clash their first taste of airplay in the States and is one of the best-known cover versions of the song. It was one of five tracks swapped on to the American edition of their debut, The Clash.
1980 - Pink Floyd advertised their upcoming world tour to promote their album The Wall with a special billboard on Los Angeles' Sunset Strip that was gradually covered up each day with a brick until an entire wall was built over it.
2019 - Weezer released The Teal Album, a collection of covers featuring their hit rendition of "Africa" (Toto). It all started with a fan suggesting they cover the Toto chart topper, which lead to a a on line petition, and about 6 months later it arrived. To return the favor, Toto would cover Weezer's Hash Pipe.
While the album has it's appeal, Weezer manly replicates the original arrangements, adds a bit more fuzz on the guitar solos, and flattens the vocal affectations, which amounts to one weird trick: Weezer doesn't attempt to make the songs their own, yet these versions unmistakably sound like Weezer.
Selections include "Take On Me" (A-ha) "No Scrubs" (TLC), and "Billie Jean" (Michael Jackson).
Birthdays:
Aaron Neville is 83. He has the body of a linebacker and the voice of an angel...I think Bob Dylan said that.
Blessed with a voice that's smooth as silk, and strong despite his emphasis on his higher register, Aaron Neville is one of the most distinctive R&B artists of his generation, a legend of New Orleans music, as a solo artist and with The Neville Brothers, who went on to become a star in pop, country, and adult contemporary circles thanks to his collaborations with the likes of Linda Ronstadt and Trisha Yearwood.
Neil Diamond is 83. Rising from humble roots in working-class Brooklyn to global success, Neil Diamond became one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century as well as a dynamic, internationally known touring act and skilled songwriter whose compositions produced numerous hits for himself and others, like The Monkees, Deep Purple, and Elvis.
Warren Zevon was born today in 1947. Few of rock & roll's great misanthropes were as talented, as charming, or as committed to their cynicism as Warren Zevon. A singer and songwriter whose music often dealt with outlaws, mercenaries, sociopaths, and villains of all stripes, Zevon's lyrics displayed a keen and ready wit despite their often uncomfortable narrative circumstances, and while he could write of love and gentler emotions, he did so with the firm conviction that such stories rarely end happily. He remained a cheerful pessimist right up to the moment he met a fate that could have visited one of his own characters.
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Blues Brother John Belushi was born today in 1949. In 1971 he landed a spot with Chicago's famed Second City Comedy Troupe. One of his best bits showcased his vocal skills, as he could do a show-stopping, dead-on impersonation of the great Joe Cocker (both visually and sonically). By 1972, he was offered a job with National Lampoon's Lemmings and syndicated Radio Hour. It was there he would meet Dan Aykroyd. They would soon sign on with Saturday Night Live.
It was there the Blues Brothers were born. First warming up the audience with blues and R&B nuggets, eventually making their way onto the show.
In 1978, John was in the #1 movie, Animal House, was on the #1 show on TV, Saturday Night Live, and a chart topping album, Briefcase Full Of Blues.
On This Day In Music History was sourced, copied, pasted, edited, and occasionally woven together with my own crude prose, from This Day in Music, Song Facts, Apple Music, Allmusic, and Wikipedia.
KBCO