1967 - The photo session for the album cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band took place at Chelsea Manor studios in London, with photographer Michael Cooper. Each Beatle had been tasked with coming up with a list of men and women throughout history that they wished to have join them at the grand imagistic fete seen on the album cover. All told, there are 57 photographs in the collage. Lennon wanting to be be “bold and brassy” in McCartney’s words, stumped for Hitler and Christ to appear, and also Gandhi.
Somewhat conspicuous in his absence on a cover featuring Bob Dylan and a reference to the Rolling Stones was the Beatles’ collective hero, Elvis Aaron Presley. According to McCartney, “Elvis was too important and too far above the rest even to mention.”
Most album covers cost around 50 pounds to make; this Beatles/Blake/Haworth opus ran to more than 3,000 pounds. A lot of that had to do with paying people to use their likeness, which was rarely a factor for a rock LP cover. (Photo by Krafft Angerer/Getty Images)
1987 - Prince releases ninth album, Sign o' the Times. Fearless, eclectic, and defiantly messy, Prince's Sign 'O' the Times falls into the tradition of tremendous, chaotic double albums like The Beatles, Exile on Main St., and London Calling -- albums that are fantastic because of their overreach, their great sprawl. Prince shows nearly all of his cards here, from bare-bones electro-funk and smooth soul to pseudo-psychedelic pop and crunching hard rock, touching on gospel, blues, and folk along the way.
Sign 'O' the Times is the sound of the late '80s -- it's the sound of the good times collapsing and how all that doubt and fear can be ignored if you just dance those problems away.
2001 - The Detroit Free Press breaks the news that Jack and Meg White of The White Stripes are not siblings as they claim, but former husband and wife. Court records show they were married in 1996 and divorced in 2000.
Birthdays:
Graeme Edge, drummer with The Moody Blues, is 81.
Eric Clapton is 77. Prior to Eric Clapton, the idea of the guitar hero didn't exist in rock & roll. There were plenty of flashy players, but nothing along the lines of Clapton, who rocketed to fame in the 1960s as the guitarist for the Yardbirds, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and Cream. The only person to be inducted into the Rock Hall three times, as a solo artist, also a member of Cream and the Yardbirds.
MC Hammer, born Stanley Kirk Burrell, is 60.
Celine Dion is 54.
Norah Jones is 43.
On This Day In Music History is sourced from Rolling Stone, Allmusic, This Day in Music, Song Facts and Wikipedia.