1967 - Otis Redding went into the studio to record "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay". Though the song skyrocketed to the top of the R&B and pop charts in the months after its release, Redding didn't get to enjoy its success as he died in a plane crash three days after recording the song. The hit was Otis's largest-selling to date and it's reported that the familiar whistling heard before the song's fade was the singer fooling around, as he had forgotten what he was going to do during that part. The idea was to come back and properly finish the song.
1976 - The Eagles released 'New Kid in Town'.
"We were writing about our replacements."
That's what J.D. Souther told Songfacts about the song, which he wrote with Eagles members Glenn Frey and Don Henley.
Said guitarist Don Felder: "Once you arrive in LA and you have your first couple of hits, you become the 'New Kid in Town,' and then with greater success, you live 'Life In The Fast Lane,' and you start wondering if all that time you've spent in the bars was just 'Wasted Time.' So all of these other song ideas kind of came out of that concept once the foundation was laid for 'Hotel California.'"
Birthdays:
Harry Chapin ("Cats in the Cradle") was born today in 1942. Harry Chapin's career as a popular singer/songwriter was cut short by an auto accident in 1981, nevertheless, Chapin earned a devoted audience during the '70s with his music and his charity work as a social activist.
Tom Waits is 74. In the works Tom Waits, swampy blues, Beat poetry, West Coast jazz, Tin Pan Alley, country, 1930s-era cabaret, and post-Civil War parlor songs meet neon-lit carnival music and wheezing, clattering, experimental rhythms (often played by makeshift musical instruments), forming a keenly individual musical universe. It has often been imitated but never replicated. Since the '70s, Waits has charted the lives and circumstances of the humble, forgotten, evil, demented, abandoned, cursed, and just plain down-on-their-luck humans to places of honor in our pantheon.(Photo credit should read PIERRE VERDY/AFP via Getty Images)
Damien Rice is 50.
R.I.P.:
2016 - Greg Lake, one of the founding fathers of progressive rock, died at age 69. He fronted both King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.
About Jimi Hendrix joining ELP to form a band called HELP...
"Jimi used to come and watch King Crimson", Lake said. "When Keith [Emerson] and I got together we went looking for a drummer. The first person I talked to was Mitch Mitchell because the Experience had just broken up and Jimi was off doing this Band of Gypsies thing. Mitch was available at the time, and he said maybe we should get Jimi together. He'll be finished with this band of Gypsies thing in a few weeks, and we can get together and maybe the four of us should play. I said, 'fair enough,' and that's how we left it."
But in the meantime, Carl Palmer was suggested as drummer and the chemistry was immediate. Then in a few weeks Jimi passed away.
"The press got a hold of the story that we might jam with Jimi, and speculated that the group would be called HELP. But, alas, it was just a rumor."
On This Day In Music History was sourced from This Day in Music, Song Facts, Allmusic, Ultimate Classic Rock, and Wikipedia.
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