1968 - Johnny Cash marries June Carter of the gospel stars The Carter Family.
1973 - Pink Floyd released their eighth studio album, Dark Side of the Moon. Roger Waters wrote a series of songs about mundane, everyday details which aren't that impressive by themselves, but when given the sonic backdrop of Floyd's slow, atmospheric soundscapes and carefully placed sound effects, they achieve an emotional resonance. But what gives the album true power is the subtly textured music, which evolves from ponderous, neo-psychedelic art rock to jazz fusion and blues-rock before turning back to psychedelia. Pink Floyd may have better albums than Dark Side of the Moon, but no other record defines them quite as well as this one.
1973 - Tom Waits releases his debut album, Closing Time. It's a minor-key masterpiece filled with songs of late-night loneliness. The frameworks of most of the songs come from the songwriter's literary obsessions with Charles Bukowski and Jack Kerouac. Closing Time quietly announces the arrival of a talented songwriter whose self-consciousness, wry barroom humor, and solitary melancholy made him a standout from virtually all of his peers, and difficult to pigeonhole.
1993 - The Cranberries release their debut studio album, Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? Guitarist Noel Hogan showed an amazing economy in his playing, and Delores O'Riordan offers up a number of romantic ponderings and considerations lyrically and her undisputed vocal ability suits the material perfectly. The two best cuts were the deserved smashes: "Dreams," a brisk, charging number combining low-key tension and full-on rock, and the melancholic, string-swept break-up song "Linger."
1993 - Q magazine publishes an interview with Sting and Bob Geldof where Sting explains how his sex lasts for hours through the benefits of yoga.
Lubricated with Irish coffee and wine, Geldof and Sting engage in a freewheeling discussion with writer Adrian Deevoy. When Geldof asks Sting if "the yoga thing" works, he replies, "It can take you to higher levels, yeah. I've started to use it in sex now where you don't spill your seed."
Sting is referring to Tantric Sex, a practice where men can train themselves to keep their volcanos dormant. "It involves this muscle a lot of men aren't trained to control," he later explains.
1994 - Beck released his third studio album, Mellow Gold. Throughout the record, Beck plays as if there are no divisions between musical genres, freely blending rock, rap, folk, psychedelia, and country. Although his inspired sense of humor occasionally plays like he's a smirking, irony-addled hipster, his music is never kitschy, and his wordplay is constantly inspired. Mellow Gold established a new vein of alternative rock, one that was fueled by ideas instead of attitude. Featured the hit, "Loser". (Photo by Karl Walter/Getty Images)
2016 - 76-year-old Ginger Baker posted on his blog that he had canceled all of his scheduled shows for the year and was going into immediate retirement. The former drummer for Cream and Blind Faith revealed that his doctor had just diagnosed him with serious heart problems, causing him to announce "No more gigs for this old drummer."
Ginger lived awhile near Parker. He settled into a ranch and founded the Mile High Polo Club (fellow iconoclast Hunter S. Thompson was a board member). Immigration troubles led Baker to leave the States, and he eventually moved to South Africa.
Birthdays:
Musician, arranger, composer, and bandleader Glenn Miller was born on this day in 1904. Glenn Miller's reign as the most popular bandleader in the U.S. came relatively late in his career but over time he has proven the most enduring figure of the swing era.
During the first year of America's involvement in WWII, he organized a service band and began performing at military camps and war-bond rallies. He took his band to Great Britain in June 1944 and continued to perform for the troops and do radio broadcasts. He was preparing to go on to Paris when the plane on which he was traveling disappeared over the English Channel and he died at age 40.
His family moved to Ft. Morgan when he was young and attended the University of Colorado. He's in the Colorado Music Hall Of Fame.
Harry Belafonte was born today in 1927. An activist, humanitarian, and actor as well as the designated "King of Calypso," Harry Belafonte ranked among the most seminal performers of the postwar era. His silken voice and masterful assimilation of folk, jazz, traditional pop, and rhythms of the Caribbean (his parents hailed from Jamaica and Martinique) took the Harlem, New York native to the top of the U.S. album chart in 1956. What became his signature tune, "The Banana Boat Song (Day-O)".
Roger Daltrey of The Who is 80. Roger’s earliest tastes in music ran to the blues and R&B which formed the setlist during their early years as The Detours, (a precursor to the Who) as well as Fifties rock’n’roll, which is reflected in his outstanding interpretations of such noted Who covers as Eddie Cochran’s ‘Summertime Blues’ and Johnny Kidd & The Pirates’ ‘Shakin’ All Over’. When Pete Townshend became the group’s songwriter, Roger became the mouthpiece for his lyrics and ideas. At the same time he contributed to the group’s sense of showmanship by developing his unique skill at twirling his microphone lead around like a lasso and, by the time of Tommy in 1969, became one of rock’s most iconic singers
KBCO
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, Rolling Stone, Allmusic, The Who, Song Facts and Wikipedia.