1966 - During a UK tour, Bob Dylan appeared at The Free Trade Hall in Manchester. This was the concert where a member of the audience shouted out ‘Judas’ at Dylan unhappy with the singers move from acoustic to rock. It was right before he and the band were going to play "Like A Rolling Stone'. Dylan replied with "I don't believe you," adding, "You're a liar!" He then proceeds to tell the band to play the song "f--king loud." The entire concert was eventually officially released in The Bootleg Series by Sony Music in 1999. The title was The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert. Apparently, according to legend, the original bootleg of the show was mislabeled and forever known as the Royal Albert Hall concert.
1971 - Paul and Linda McCartney release Ram. Where McCartney was homemade, sounding deliberately ragged in parts, Ram had a fuller production yet retained that ramshackle feel, sounding as if it were recorded in a shack out back, not far from the farm where the cover photo of Paul holding the ram by the horns was taken.
All this made Ram an object of scorn and derision upon its release (and for years afterward, in fact), but in retrospect it looks like nothing so much as the first indie pop album, a record that celebrates small pleasures with big melodies, a record that's guileless and unembarrassed to be cutesy. Highlights: Heart Of The Country, Smile Away, Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey.
1987 - A fire destroyed Tom Petty's house in Los Angeles; the rebuilding cost was estimated at $800,000.
Petty, his then-wife Jane Benyon, and their young daughter were having breakfast when they suddenly caught a whiff of smoke. The arsonist had soaked one of the property’s wooden staircases with lighter fluid and lit it before vacating the scene.
“We were shaken for years by it,” Petty told Paul Zollo in the book Conversations with Tom Petty. “I wouldn’t even use the word ‘fire’ in a song or anything,” Petty admitted to Zollo. “It really frightened me. They didn’t just try to kill me, they tried to wipe out my whole family. And it was a hell of a day. It was my wife’s birthday.”
However, Petty responded in the best way possible: by writing one of his best-beloved songs, the anthemic ‘I Won’t Back Down’ from Full Moon Fever.
1999 - Moby released his fifth studio album, the critical and commercial success, Play. Moby continues to reconnect to his techno roots. There's moments of blues-meets-electronica, while most of the album is the evocative, melancholy techno that's been a specialty since his early days. The tinkly piano line and warped string samples on "Porcelain" frame a meaningful, devastatingly understated vocal from the man himself.
1999 - The Flaming Lips release The Soft Bulletin. In many ways their most daring work yet, a plaintively emotional, lushly symphonic pop masterpiece eons removed from the mind-warping noise of their past efforts. Its multidimensional sound is positively celestial, a shape-shifting pastiche of blissful melodies, heavenly harmonies, and orchestral flourishes; but for all its headphone-friendly innovations, the music is still amazingly accessible, never sacrificing popcraft in the name of radical experimentation. Highlights: Race For The Prize, A Spoonful Weights A Ton and Waitin' On A Superman
2013 - French Electronic Duo Daft Punk released their fourth album Random Access Memories. Here, Daft Punk separate themselves from most contemporary electronic music and how it's made, enlisting some of their biggest influences to help them get the sounds they needed without samples. Pharrell Williams, Julian Casablancas from the Strokes, Panda Bear, and Nile Rogers all drop by. It's the kind of grand, album rock statement that listeners of the '70s and '80s would have spent weeks or months dissecting and absorbing -- the ambition of Steely Dan, Alan Parsons, and Pink Floyd are as vital to the album as any of the duo's collaborators.(Photo by Karl Walter/Getty Images)
Birthdays:
Taj Mahal is 82. Born Henry St. Claire Fredericks Jr, his 1968 self-titled debut followed by 1969's Giant Step, Taj Mahal revealed himself as one the world's most prominent blues stylists and storytellers. Through out the years he's approached everything from calypso and reggae, trad jazz, gospel, R&B, and zydeco to various Pacific Islander and West African cultures. But Mahal never strayed far from country-blues.
Drummer Bill Bruford is 75. Known for his ringing metal snare drum, crisp cymbal work, and knack for complex time signatures, a young Bruford came to prominence in the late '60s with Yes. The drummer completed his British art rock trilogy by briefly joining Genesis in the 1970s and spending a quarter-century with King Crimson through the late '90s.
Enya is 63. With her blend of folk melodies, synthesized backdrops, and classical motifs, Enya created a distinctive style that more closely resembled new age than the folk and Celtic music that provided her initial influences. Thanks to its distinct, catchy single "Orinoco Flow," Enya's second album Watermark established her as the unexpected queen of gentle, Celtic-tinged new age music.
R.I.P.:
1996 - Blues, funk, and soul, guitarist Johnny Guitar Watson died of a heart attack while on tour in Yokohama, Japan. According to eyewitness reports, he collapsed mid guitar solo. His last words were "ain't that a bitch." His ferocious 'Space Guitar' single of 1954 pioneered guitar feedback and reverb.
2012 - Donna Summer, the 1970s pop singer known as the "Queen of Disco," died of lung cancer. Her title as the "Queen of Disco" wasn't mere hype. Like many of her contemporaries, she was a talented vocalist trained as a powerful gospel belter, but she set herself apart with her songwriting ability, magnetic stage presence, and shrewd choice of studio collaborators, all of which resulted in sustained success. After disco was declared dead, Summer was very much part of the evolution of dance music. Through the feminist anthem "She Works Hard for the Money" (1983), she became an MTV star, and she continued to top the club chart with disco-rooted house singles.
2016 - American Texas country and folk singer-songwriter Guy Clark died in Nashville. Guy Clark didn't just write songs, he crafted them, with the kind of hands-on care and respect that a master carpenter (a favorite image of his) would when faced with a stack of rare hardwood. Clark worked slowly and with strict attention to detail -- he released only 13 studio albums in his 40-year career -- but he produced an impressive collection of timeless gems, leaving very little waste behind. His albums never met much commercial success, but the emotional level of his work consistently transcended sales figures and musical genres.
2022 - Greek composer Vangelis, who was known for his celebrated film themes for Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner, died at the age of 79. Vangelis first tasted fame as the keyboardist in the band Aphrodite's Child. Check out the song "The Four Horsemen".
On This Day In Music History was sourced, curated, copied, pasted, edited, and occasionally woven together from This Day in Music, Music This Day, Far Out Magazine, Allmusic, Song Facts and Wikipedia.
KBCO