1968 - The outspoken Frank Zappa performed at a dinner for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences: the folks who give us the Grammys. Zappa says the event was "a load of pompous hokum" and told the audience, "All year long you people have manufactured this crap, now for one night you're gonna have to listen to it!"
1973 - In one of Sesame Street’s most memorable moments, Stevie Wonder played a funky, seven-minute live version of "Superstition" on the show. Watch below, it will make you day!
1975 - During an interview with Playboy Magazine David Bowie announced his second career retirement, saying, "I've rocked my roll. It's a boring dead end, there will be no more rock 'n' roll records from me. The last thing I want to be is some useless f—ing rock singer."
1975 - Elton John's "Philadelphia Freedom," named after the professional tennis team his friend Billie Jean King coaches, hits #1. There's a Colorado connection.
“We had the playoffs in Denver,” the tennis great said. “Elton came because he’d been recording up at Caribou. He was all excited, saying, ‘You’ve got to listen to this tape. This is it, the song I wrote for you,’ So he played me a rough mix of ‘Philadelphia Freedom,’ and it was great. And when he got to the chorus he said, ‘Listen to this part. Hear the beat? That’s when you get mad on the court.’”
1983 - R.E.M. release their debut album, Murmur. R.E.M. created a distinctive sound for the album -- one that sounds eerily timeless. Even though it is firmly in the tradition of American folk-rock, post-punk, and garage rock, Murmur sounds as if it appeared out of nowhere, without any ties to the past, present, or future. R.E.M. may have made albums as good as Murmur in the years following its release, but they never again made anything that sounded quite like it.
2008 - Lou Reed married his third wife, the conceptual artist Laurie Anderson. The couple, who had been together since the early '90s, had decided to get married the previous day, so they met at a friend's house in Boulder, Colorado and held the ceremony in the backyard. Nick Forrester, E-Town founder, presided over the ceremony.
Prior to getting married, Lou dropped by KBCO for an interview. Afterwards I escorted Lou back to his ride. In the elevator he called Laurie and said how much he loved Boulder and that they should move here. That didn't happen, but he did eventually got married here. Photo L-R: Ginger, Bret, Lou, his Tai Chi instructor, and me.
Birthdays:
Tiny Tim was born today in 1932. During his proverbial 15 minutes of fame in the late '60s, Tiny Tim was one of the most bizarre spectacles on television: a six-foot-tall man with long, unkempt ringlets of hair, and a garish plaid wardrobe; warbling the old-time pop standard "Tip-Toe Through the Tulips" in a quavering, shockingly high falsetto while accompanying himself on the ukulele. Pegged as strictly a novelty act, Tim actually possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of vintage American pop and vaudeville songs; he was an avid collector of 78 rpm records and sheet music, and often scoured the New York Public Library's musical archives for material.
Herbie Hancock is 83. Herbie Hancock will always be one of the most revered and controversial figures in jazz, just as his employer/mentor Miles Davis was when he was alive. Unlike Miles, who pressed ahead relentlessly and never looked back until near the very end, Hancock has cut a zigzagging forward path, shuttling between almost every development in electronic and acoustic jazz and R&B over the last third of the 20th century and into the 21st.
Amy Ray of Indigo Girls is 59. Singer, songwriter, and activist Amy Ray broke through to mainstream success in the late '80s as one-half of the acclaimed folk-rock duo Indigo Girls, whose self-titled sophomore album earned them a Grammy Award in 1990. With their defiant messages of LGBTQ rights, environmentalism, and feminism, and their willingness to take on a variety of other challenging social and political issues, Ray and her musical partner, Emily Saliers, became one of the most enduring female acts of the '90s, weaving activism with art and building a large and deeply devoted fan base that continued to support them in the following decades.
On This Day In Music History was sourced from This Day in Music, Colorado Music Experience, Allmusic, Song Facts and Wikipedia.