1967 - Dave Mason announces that he is leaving Traffic, just as the group is releasing its debut album. There was friction about the direction of the band between Mason and Steve Winwood..
Said Mason:"I have a very pop sensibility, and in the beginning the songs that I was writing became the singles for the band, and that was a rub for the other three. They didn’t want it. That’s why I upped and moved to California.”
The reconciled with Mason, who rejoined Traffic in the spring of 1968 and contributed heavily to the band's second album, Traffic, writing half of the songs, among them "Feelin' Alright?," which went on to become a rock standard, particularly after Joe Cocker's 1969 cover version became an American Top 40 hit in 1972.
1975 - Time magazine introduces the phrase "Sex Rock" in an article taking aim at Donna Summer's "Love To Love You Baby."
Time claims that 15 percent of air time on AM radio is taken up by sex rock songs like "Do It Any Way You Wanna" by People's Choice, "That's The Way (I Like It)" by KC & The Sunshine Band, "I Want'a Do Something Freaky To You" by Leon Haywood and "Let's Do It Again" by the Staple Singers. The most egregious offender though is "Love To Love You Baby," a song they say contains 22 orgasms.
Sex Rock only grows stronger, and it takes "Darling Nikki" by Prince to spark the next kerfuffle over lascivious lyrics, which comes in the mid-'80s when the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) launches a successful campaign to get warning stickers places on certain albums.
1982 - Unexpectedly (and some say inexplicably) delving into electronic music, Neil Young releases his 12th studio album, Trans. He had employed a vocoder to synthesize his voice on five of the album's nine tracks, resulting in disembodied singing.
Later, Young would reveal that some of the songs expressed a theme of attempted communication with his disabled son, and in that context, lines like "I stand by you" and "So many things still left to do/But we haven't made it yet" seemed clearer. Trans had a few good songs, notably "Sample and Hold" (which seemed to be about a computer dating service for robots), a remake of "Mr. Soul," and "Like an Inca"
Birthdays:
Rick Danko, best known as the bassist and sometime lead vocalist for the Band, was born today in 1943. As a member of the Hawks — alongside his future associates in the Band — he was part of the backing band for Ronnie Hawkins, and later Bob Dylan. In the late ‘60s, Danko found a pink house in Saugerties, New York. The residence, later dubbed “Big Pink,” became a home and recording space for the Band’s Music from Big Pink and The Basement Tapes, released with Bob Dylan.
Yvonne Elliman is 72. She sang the role of Mary Magdalene in the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar; the role brought her instant fame. Elliman also played the Magdalene character in the film version of Superstar and was nominated for a Golden Globe award; it also gave her a hit with "I Don't Know How to Love Him."
In 1977, the Bee Gees were working on Saturday Night Fever and wrote 'How Deep Is Your Love' for her, but the band's manager Robert Stigwood wanted the Bee Gees to perform it. Instead, she recorded 'If I Can't Have You'. She also worked with Eric Clapton performing on his albums from 1974-77, including 461 Ocean Boulevard, There's One in Every Crowd, E. C. Was Here, No Reason to Cry, and Slowhand.
Marianne Faithfull is 77. One time girlfriend of Mick Jagger, she achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her hit single 'As Tears Go By' (written by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Rolling Stones' manager Andrew Loog Oldham) and became one of the lead female artists during the "British Invasion" in the United States. She also co-wrote the Rolling Stones' "Sister Morphine."
She pulled off an astonishing comeback in late 1979 with Broken English. Displaying a weathered, cutting voice that had lowered a good octave since the mid-'60s, Faithfull had also begun to write much of her own material, and addressed sex and despair with wrenching realism. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)
R.I.P.:
1980 - Singer/songwriter Tim Hardin died of a heroin overdose. A gentle, soulful singer who owed as much to blues and jazz as folk, Tim Hardin produced an impressive body of work in the late '60s without ever approaching either mass success or the artistic heights of the best singer/songwriters.
Hardin wrote the songs "If I Were A Carpenter" (covered by Bobby Darin, Johnny Cash and June Carter, The Four Tops, Leon Russell, Small Faces, Robert Plant and Bob Seger,) and "Reason To Believe" (covered by Rod Stewart).
On This Day In Music History was sourced, copied, pasted and occasionally woven together with my own crude prose from Song Facts, Best Rock Bands, Allmusic, and Wikipedia.