1965 - The Kinks kicked off their first headlining tour of the British Isles. The Yardbirds opened.
1970 - Twiggs Lyndon, the road manager for the Allman Brothers Band, was arrested for murder after he stabbed a club manager during an argument over a contract. At the ensuing trial, Lyndon's lawyers argued that he had been temporarily insane at the time of the incident and that touring with the Allman Brothers would drive anyone insane. Incredibly, Lyndon was acquitted.
1973 - The second Wings album, Red Rose Speedway, is released in America. It's decidedly on the softer side of things, but winds up being a really strange record, one that veers toward the schmaltzy (especially on the hit single "My Love"), yet is thoroughly twisted in its own desire toward domestic art, made with wife Linda and his pick up band. As a result, this is every bit as insular as the lo-fi records of the early '90s, but considerably more artful, since it was, after all, designed by one of the great pop composers of the century.
Reviews were mostly harsh, with Village Voice critic Robert Christgau deriding McCartney's reliance on "aimless whimsy" and described the work as "Quite possibly the worst album ever made by a rock and roller of the first rank."
There is some braille on the back cover spelling out the message, "We love you baby," aimed at Stevie Wonder.
1974 - Richard and Linda Thompson release I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. In Linda Thompson, Richard found a superb collaborator and a world-class vocalist; Linda possessed a voice as clear and rich as Sandy Denny's, but with a strength that could easily support Richard's often weighty material. And while Richard had already made clear that he was a songwriter to be reckoned with, here he went from strength to strength.
While I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight may be the darkest music of Richard & Linda Thompson's career, in this chronicle of pain and longing they were able to forge music of striking and unmistakable beauty; if the lyrics often ponder the high stakes of our fate in this life, the music offered a glimpse of the joys that make the struggle worthwhile.
1976 - The Who's drummer Keith Moon paid nine cab drivers to block off both ends of a New York street so he could throw the contents of his hotel room out of the window. Moon pays the drivers $100 each to block both ends of a street (didn't want to get anyone hurt...) so he can throw furniture out of his room at the Hotel Navarro. Details of this story may have been exaggerated or embellished, but it is consistent with his behavior.
Moon famously said about his ‘eccentricity’ and how it presented itself while on tour with the band. “When you’ve got money and you do the kind of things I get up to, people laugh and say that you’re eccentric,” adding “which is a polite way of saying you’re fucking mad.” (Photo credit DON EMMERT/AFP via Getty Images)
1976 - Bob Marley and the Wailers release Rastaman Vibration. Despite the good cheer of the title track and the upbeat "Roots, Rock, Reggae," Rastaman Vibration contains some of Marley's most intense images of oppression, paranoia and despair. Tracks such as "Who the Cap Fit," "Crazy Baldhead" and "War" are offered by the Wailers with dire urgency as Marley's brutal visions are echoed by his own church choir, the I-Threes.
1977 - Steve Miller's "Jet Airliner" is released. When Steve Miller first heard the song “Jet Airliner,” it was an angry piece written about a negative experience in the music industry.
It had been penned by blues-rocker Paul Pena in 1973, and tackled the subject of his unhappiness over working on his album New Train which, as a result of disagreements, remained unreleased for 27 years. It finally came out in 2000.
‘Jet Airliner’ was about those people and his treatment on the East Coast when he went out,” Miller explained. “He really didn’t want to leave California and go to the East Coast and record this record, and this was a song about it. When he brought it to me, he had recorded an album, and nothing had happened. On that album there were five or six really, really great songs, and I needed one song.” If you've never heard the original, check it out below.
1991 - Nirvana signed a recording contract with Geffen's DGC label for $290,000.
2005 - Bauhaus reunite to play the Coachella Festival, opening their set with "Bela Lugosi's Dead," which lead singer Peter Murphy performs hanging upside down.
Birthdays:
Punk pioneer Wayne Stanley Kramer (Kambes), lead guitarist for the MC5, was born today in 1948. As a teenager, he cofounded MC5 — short for Motor City Five — with guitarist Fred “Sonic” Smith in 1963. Kramer's work with the MC5 would prove to be wildly influential, though outside of the American Midwest, their initial impact was minimal. However, their blend of blazing hard rock, free jazz-informed improvisation, and sociopolitical rabble-rousing, would influence much of what happened in hard rock, punk, alternative, and grunge in the decades that followed.
MC5 will be honored for musical excellence at the 2024 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Oct. 19 in Cleveland.
Justin Vernon is 43. Best-known as the frontman and heart behind Bon Iver, Their gentle strumming of acoustic guitars, subtle arrangements, and Vernon's swooning falsetto combined to create a mood that felt like backwoods Radiohead recorded by candlelight.
R.I.P.:
1982 - American music journalist, author and musician Lester Bangs died at age 33. Bangs worked for Rolling Stone, Creem and The Village Voice.
As the New Yorker wrote:... a wreck of a man, fat, sweaty, unkempt—an out-of-control alcoholic in torn jeans and a too-small black leather jacket; crocked to the gills on the Romilar cough syrup he swigged down by the bottle. He also had the most advanced and exquisite taste of any American writer of his generation, uneven and erratic as it was.
For a taste of his writing, I recommend: Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic.
1983 - One of the most influential of all Chicago bluesmen, Muddy Waters (born McKinley Morganfield), died while asleep at home in Westmont, Ill., at age 68. A major influence on many acts, like Cream, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, plus The Rolling Stones named themselves after Waters' 1950 song 'Rollin' Stone.'
Waters released some of the most powerful and influential music in the history of electric blues, scoring hits with numbers like "Rollin' and Tumblin,'" "I'm Ready," "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man," "Mannish Boy," "Trouble No More," "Got My Mojo Working," and "I Just Want to Make Love to You" which made him a frequent presence on the R&B charts.
2015 - Ben E. King, songwriter and singer of "Stand By Me," died at age 76. From the groundbreaking orchestrated productions of the Drifters to his own solo hits, Ben E. King was the definition of R&B elegance. King's plaintive baritone had all the passion of gospel, but the settings in which it was displayed were tailored more for his honey smooth phrasing and crisp enunciation, proving for perhaps the first time that R&B could be sophisticated and accessible to straight pop audiences. King's approach influenced countless smooth soul singers in his wake.
On This Day In Music History was sourced, curated, copied, pasted, edited, and occasionally woven together with my own crude prose, from This Day in Music, Ultimate Classic Rock, Music This Day, Classic Bands, Rolling Stone, Allmusic, Far Out Magazine, Song Facts and Wikipedia.
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