1976 - Genesis released 'A Trick Of The Tail', their seventh studio album and the first to feature drummer Phil Collins as full-time lead vocalist following the departure of original vocalist Peter Gabriel. After auditioning over 400 vocalists, which saw Collins teaching the potential lead singers the songs, the band decided that Collins should be the new vocalist.
The album returns the group to the fanciful fairy tale nature of its earlier records, moving away from the barbed pop of the first LP and returning to elastic numbers that showcased their instrumental prowess. Highlights: Dance On The Volcano, Squonk, Ripples, and the title track.
1993 - Willie Nelson agreed to pay $9 million of the $16.7 million he owed the Internal Revenue Service. His accountants, Price Waterhouse, had not been paying Nelson's taxes for years, and in addition to the unpaid taxes, Nelson's situation was exacerbated by weak investments he had made during the early 1980s.
Nelson recorded the album, “The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories,” a compilation of demos, outtakes, and stripped-down recordings.
The album only featured Nelson and his guitar.
The original arrangement by the IRS was for Nelson to sell four million copies of the album to pay off his debt, but only $3.6 million total was raised from the album.
Ultimately, Nelson paid off the remaining $9 million he owed and his debt was satisfied.
2011 - The White Stripes split up after six albums, ending their run as one of the most successful rock duos. They specifically denied any artistic differences or health issues but cited "a myriad of reasons ... mostly to preserve what is beautiful and special about the band".
The duo formed in 1997, before the proliferation of the internet. This allowed Jack and Meg to pull off a delicious hoax: They claimed to be brother and sister when they were, in fact, husband and wife. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images)
Birthdays:
Tom Smothers of the Smothers Brothers was born on this day in 1937. Part of one of the most popular comedy teams of the 1960s, the Smothers Brothers rose to fame at a time when commercial folk music and comedy albums were both big business, and they were the rare group that enjoyed the best of both worlds.
While they were skilled musicians and vocalists, they discovered their audiences especially enjoyed their between-song patter, in which Tom took on the persona of the stammering, mischievous younger brother (even though he was Dick's senior) and Dick would lose his patience trying to keep him in line. This would descend into sibling rivalry, as Tom delivered his trademark line, "Mom always liked you best!"
Hosted The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. The network wanted clean cut laughs but Tom as interested in bringing more challenging material to television. Hiring a staff of fresh young writers (including the then-unknown Steve Martin and Rob Reiner) and featuring hip musical guests such as the Who, Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, Buffalo Springfield, and George Harrison, They often presented sharp social and political comedy in its sketches, and featured occasional references to drugs and sex that led to frequent battles with network censors. CBS eventually had enough and cancelled the show.
Graham Nash is 82 today. He played a pivotal part in at least two of the major musical movements of the classic rock era. He started his professional career as a member of the Hollies, a pioneering British Invasion group who defined a specific segment of '60s harmony-laden guitar pop. Once he left the band, he joined forces with Stephen Stills of Buffalo Springfield and David Crosby of the Byrds to form the supergroup Crosby, Stills & Nash, a trio that helped usher in the transition from hippie folk-rock to the reflective singer/songwriters of the '70s.
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, Allmusic, KSAT, and Wikipedia.