portrait of this blog's author - by Stephen Blackman 2008

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

ON THIS DAY IN MUSIC


July 31st

1957 - Ringo Starr
Richard Starkey is thought to have made his debut at the The Cavern playing drums with the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group. John Lennon made his first appearance at the club a week later with The Quarry Men Skiffle Group. Paul McCartney made his first appearance in January 1958 with The Quarry Men.


1967 - The Rolling Stones
An appeal court in London, England, gave Mick Jagger a conditional discharge and quashed Keith Richard’s conviction for permitting his house to be used for the purpose of smoking cannabis resin.

1968 - Tommy James
Tommy James and The Shondells were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Mony Mony'. WE were at school when it came out and we played this to death at the local youth club and I bought it on a compilation album as I recall.
maybe it would have helped if we had SEEN them!!!! AAAAAAGH THAT HAIR
oh dear no, don't do that . . . . . . . . . 

1968 - The Beatles
Working at Trident studios in London, England, (with its 8-track equipment, EMI was still using 4-track recorders), The Beatles recorded four takes of a new Paul McCartney song 'Hey Jude'.

outtakes version . . . . . from Jeff Harris' wonderful blog Behind the Grooves. Give him a click and send him some dollar! You know it makes sense (see below)

On this day in music history: July 30, 1968 - The Beatles begin recording “Hey Jude” at Abbey Road Studios in London, in Studio Two. Written by Paul McCartney (credited to Lennon - McCartney), McCartney is inspired to write the song (originally titled “Hey Jules”) while driving over to visit band mate John Lennon’s five year old son, Julian and former wife Cynthia at their home in Weybridge, Surrey. Paul begins writing the song to console Julian after his parents have separated and are in the process of getting divorced. Though McCartney later states another inspiration for the song is his recent break up with long term girlfriend actress Jane Asher, John Lennon also feels that Paul is speaking (indirectly) to him in the song as he has begun his relationship with Yoko Ono at this time. The rehearsal sessions are filmed and are first seen on the NBC network program “Music! Experiment In Television”, providing a rare glimpse of the band working in the studio. The master take of the song is recorded at Trident Studios in Soho the next day. For the recording, McCartney plays Trident’s Bechstein grand piano, which over time appears on numerous landmark recordings including ones by Elton John, David Bowie and Queen. “Hey Jude” becomes The Beatles biggest single spending nine weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, selling over four million copies in the US alone.
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1971 - James Taylor
James Taylor went to No.1 on the US singles chart with the Carole King song 'You've Got A Friend', (included in her album Tapestry and James Taylor's album Mud Slide Slim). The song would go on to win the 1971 Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal male Performance and Song Of The Year.
love these two!

1971 - The Who
A security guard was stabbed to death during a concert by The Who at New York's Forest Hill Stadium.

1980 - Eagles
During an Eagles concert at Long Beach, California, tempers boiled over between Glen Frey and Don Felder, who spent the entire show describing to each other the beating each planned to administer backstage. "Only three more songs until I kick your ass, pal," Frey told Felder. The group’s next album was mixed by Frey and Felder on opposite coasts after the two decided they couldn't bear to be in the same state, let alone the same studio. Never could stomach the Eagles and that ersatz cowboy schtick so this seems entirely understandable I would have got pissed off with both of them!
talking about it later Glen looked like an estate agent and here Don seems likable but boy what a bunch!

1980 - John Phillips
John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas was apprehended by FBI narcotics agents for possession of cocaine, he was later sentenced to 250 hours Community service giving anti-drug lectures. A life long addict and debauched figure who numbered coke, heroin and incest amongst his foibles he died of complications surrounding a liver transplant in 2001


1992 - Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson made an unscheduled appearance on his hotel balcony in London after a man had threatened to jump from an apartment building across the street. 28 year-old Eric Herminie told police he would leap to his death if he didn't see Jackson, who was in Britain for a series of concerts. Jackson spent a couple of minutes waving to Herminie, who then climbed back into the building.



1994 - R Kelly
Aaliyah and R. Kelly secretly married at the Sheraton Gateway Suites, Rosemont, IL. Aaliyah never admitted being married, though Vibe published a copy of the marriage certificate. Unfortunately, she was only 15 at the time, so thus the marriage was later annulled.


2001 - John Walters
BBC producer John Walters died aged 63. Walters produced and worked with Radio 1 DJ John Peel, who teamed up with Walters to broadcast some of the most groundbreaking music of an era. He joined the BBC in 1967, and became producer on John Peel's Top Gear show two years later. Walters had played the trumpet with the Alan Price Set in the 1960s. Peel and Walters turned up at MOMA Oxford when I worked there to see the Paul Klee exhibition and I had quite a chat with them. John had been a lifelong fan of Klee and knew his stuff, Walters seemed more bemused but they were both really nice and friendly 
The Johns - For Phil! (see who says I don't know about football!?)

2006 - Boy George
Former Culture Club singer Boy George (O'Dowd) was ordered to do community service by picking up trash on New York City streets after pleading guilty last March to false reporting of an incident. He called police with a bogus report of a burglary at his lower Manhattan apartment in October and the responding officers found cocaine inside.





we love George and he always bounces back!

2012 - Sheryl Crow
Sheryl Crow was granted a temporary restraining order against a man accused of threatening to shoot her. The order stated that Phillip Gordon Sparks had to stay 90 metres away from Crow and must not contact her, her family or anyone who works with her.


2015 - Morrissey
Morrissey claimed he was sexually assaulted by a security officer at San Francisco International Airport, who he said "groped" him. An official spokesman for the Transport Security Administration (TSA) said security camera footage confirmed that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. Oh Steven!? . . . . . .  ha ha ha ha ha.

BIRTHDAYS

1963 - Norman Cook
Norman Cook also known by his stage name Fatboy Slim, English DJ, musician, multi-instrumentalist and record producer/mixer who with The Housemartins had the a cappella cover version of 'Caravan of Love' (originally by Isley-Jasper-Isley) which was a UK No.1 single. He was a member of Beats International who had the 1990 UK No.1 'Dub Be Good To Me'). Freak Power, who scored the hit 'Turn On Tune In Cop Out' and as as Fatboy Slim, had the 1999 UK No.1 single 'Praise You'.
see if you can spot Norman and also Phil Jupitus

live version still with Norm on bass . . . . . . . Turn it UP!

1958 - Bill Berry
Bill Berry, drums, R.E.M. (1991 UK No.6 & US No.10 single 'Shiny Happy People', plus over 20 Top 40 UK singles, 1992 UK No.1 & US No.2 album 'Automatic For The People'). Berry quit the band in 1997.


Tuesday, July 30, 2019

ON THIS DAY IN MUSIC

July 30th

1955 - Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash recorded his first version of 'Folsom Prison Blues' at the Sun Recording Studio in Memphis, Tennessee. Cash was inspired to write this song after seeing the movie Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison (1951) while serving in West Germany in the United States Air Force at Landsberg, Bavaria (itself the location of a famous prison).
we will have mentioned I think that Johnny was introduced to me by my dear older brother Steve and the joys of having such a peer or role model was he discovered more artists and introduced me to a huge amount, the pinnacle of which was undoubtedly Bob Dylan but Johnny Cash and the live at Folsum Prison recordings not the least of these

1966 - The Beatles
The Beatles started a five week run at No.1 on the US album chart with 'Yesterday...And Today', the group's 8th No.1 album. Issued only in the United States and Canada, the album is remembered primarily for the controversy surrounding its original cover image, the "butcher cover" featuring the band dressed in white smocks and covered with decapitated baby dolls and pieces of meat.

1966 - The Troggs
The Troggs started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Wild Thing'. Because of a distribution dispute, The Troggs' single was available on two competing labels: Atco and Fontana. Because both pressings were taken from the identical master recording, Billboard combined the sales for both releases, making it the only single to simultaneously reach No. 1 for two companies.


1968 - The Beatles
The Beatles closed their Apple Boutique in London after seven months of business, giving away all the stock to passers by and Apple staff.


1969 - The Beatles
The Beatles continued working on Abbey Road recording overdubs on ‘Come Together’, ‘Polythene Pam/She Came In Through the Bathroom Window’, ‘You Never Give Me Your Money’ and ‘Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight’. The Beatles began to assemble the "medley" that would make up side two of the album. Paul McCartney told tape operator John Kurlander to discard ‘Her Majesty’, but Kurlander tacked it onto the end of the tape, about 20 seconds after the end of ‘The End’. Hearing it like this, Paul decides to keep it, including the lengthy silence preceding it.

1986 - John Denver
Variety magazine reported that RCA had dropped John Denver from its roster after the release of his single, ‘What Are We Making Weapons For’. Variety said the song upset the record company's new owner, General Electric, one of the largest defence contractors in the US. There are times when perhaps I under appreciated  Denver and whilst I didn't subscribe to his home spun country charm of the hillbilly next door schtick, I think he was possibly nicer and more politically simpatico than I ever gave him credit for. 
1987 - David Bowie
David Bowie kicked of the North American leg of 'The Glass Spider Tour' at the Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The tour's set, described at the time as "the largest touring set ever," was designed to look like a giant spider. It was 60 feet (18.3m) high, 64 feet (19.5m) wide. A single set took 43 trucks to move from each city. 

Bowie and Peter Frampton (whose career received a flip from the adoption of the guitarist)
1988 - Steve Winwood
Steve Winwood started a four week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Roll With It', a No.53 hit in the UK. Later Motown songwriters Holland-Dozier-Holland were credited with co-writing the song due to its resemblance to the Junior Walker hit (I'm a) Roadrunner.

2003 - Sam Phillips
Sam Phillips the founder of Sun Records and studio died of respiratory failure at St. Francis Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. In the 1940s, Phillips worked as a DJ for Muscle Shoals, Alabama radio station WLAY. Phillips recorded what some consider to be the first rock and roll record, ‘Rocket 88’ by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats in 1951. He discovered Elvis Presley, worked with Carl Perkins, Johnny CashRoy Orbison, Ike Turner, B.B. King and Jerry Lee Lewis.

2005 - Jimi Hendrix
A new book published to mark the 35th anniversary of the death of Jimi Hendrix claimed the guitarist pretended to be gay so he would be discharged from the army. 'Room Full of Mirrors' by Charles Cross said army records showed Hendrix was discharged from the 101st Airborne Division aged 19 in 1962 for "homosexual tendencies."
I can find no evidence of this being true and the records show his 'delinquent' behaviour and lack of discipline was all an elaborate ruse to get out of the service, authority and warfare especially clashing with the burgeoning awakening of the young Hendrix



2006 - Shakira



Shakira feat Wyclef Jean started a four week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Hips Don't Lie.’ A remake of Wyclef Jean's 2004 song 'Dance Like This', the song went on to top the charts in over 50 countries. The song is the biggest selling single of the 21st century by a female artist worldwide.
maybe it could have been issued with a health warning!? I have high blood pressure for pity's sake!

2007 - Led Zeppelin
A man admitted bootlegging charges after hearing evidence from Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. Robert Langley, 57, from Buckingham, originally denied three trademark and two copyright infringements after being caught at a record fair in Glasgow. The seizure of CDs and DVDs two years ago included £11,500 of counterfeit Led Zeppelin material.
Langley, known in the trade as "Mr Toad", sold discs featuring illegal recordings of live gigs for between £6 and £300 on his own Silver Rarities and Langley Masters labels. He was arrested by Strathclyde Police after a BPI-organised anti-piracy raid on his stall at a Scottish record fair in February 2005.
The seizure of CDs and DVDs included counterfeit Led Zeppelin material valued at an estimated £11,500, a £220 set of recordings from a Led Zeppelin tour in Japan and a £40 set of a warm-up session in Denmark. It also included an estimated £1,790 of pirated Rolling Stones recordings and a cache of Beatles music valued at £885.
Langley, 57, from Buckingham, was released on bail pending a sentencing hearing scheduled for 30 August. He also faces another hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act in which prosecutors are expected to seek the confiscation of almost £250,000 he's estimated to have made from music piracy.

2009 - Procol Harum
Procol Harum organist Matthew Fisher won his long battle to be recognised as co-writer of the band's hit ’A Whiter Shade Of Pale. Law Lords ruled that Fisher, who claimed he wrote the song's organ melody, was entitled to a share of future royalties. In 2006, the High Court ruled he was entitled to 40% of the copyright, but the Court Of Appeal overturned the ruling in 2008 saying he waited too long, 38 years, to bring the case to court.
 Matthew Fisher who won a share of the royalties of A Whiter Shade of Pale - 42 years after the record became one of the biggest hits in pop history. Photograph: Andrew Parsons/PA

2014 - Dick Wagner
American rock guitarist, and songwriter Dick Wagner, who worked with Alice Cooper and Lou Reed died from a lung infection aged 71. One of the best-known songs written by Wagner is 'Only Women Bleed', which was one of Alice Coppers biggest hits.

another single I bought when it came out . . . . from the ex-jukebox bargain bins . . . . 
perhaps my favourite guitar dueling intro to any rock song ever is this with the legendary playoff between Wagner and Steve Hunter and I love that Lou Reed isn't even on stage when it takes place and you can hear him walk on after the solo guitars are done . . . . . 
when Rock 'n' Roll Animal came out we could scarcely play anything else for ages

2014 - Jail Guitar Doors



A ban on steel-string guitars in prison cells in England and Wales was reversed after a campaign including Billy Bragg, David Gilmour, Elbow's Guy Garvey and Johnny Marr. Billy Bragg founded Jail Guitar Doors, a scheme that has sent around 350 guitars to prisons since 2007.
http://www.jailguitardoors.org.uk


2015 - Lynn Anderson
American country music singer, Lynn Anderson, died aged 67. The multi-award-winning singer scored the 1970 US No.3 & 1971 UK No.3 single 'Rose Garden', and charted 12 No.1, 18 Top 10, and more than 50 Top 40 hits. Anderson was the first female country artist to win the American Music Award (in 1974), as well as the first to headline and sellout Madison Square Garden that same year.

Lynn Anderson Obituary - The Guardian

2016 - Jack White
Jack White’s mission to play the first record in space was accomplished. 'A Glorious Dawn' by composer John Boswell, mixed with audio of American scientist Carl Sagan describing the universe, was played 28,000 metres above Earth on a “space-proof” turntable. The record played for about 80 minutes until the high-altitude balloon which carried the contraption burst and propelled the turntable back towards Marsing, Idaho.

BIRTHDAYS
1936 - George "Buddy" Guy
George "Buddy" Guy, American blues guitarist and singer. Critically acclaimed, he is a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound.


1941 - Paul Anka
Paul Anka, singer, (1957 UK & US No.1 single 'Diana'. The single sold over 9 million copies world- wide). Wrote many classic songs including: 'It Doesn't Matter Anymore', 'Puppy Love' and the lyrics to 'My Way.' A father figure of 'pop' art at it's earliest purity and not to everyone's taste but heck he could pen a tune!




1957 - Rat Scabies
Chris Miller (Rat Scabies), drummer from English punk rock band The Damned, who had the 1983 UK No.3 single 'Eloise'.



1958 - Kate Bush
Kate Bush, UK singer, songwriter, who had the 1978 UK No.1 single 'Wuthering Heights' (at the age of 19). Her 1985 UK No.1 album 'Hounds Of Love' spent 52 weeks on the chart. In 1987, she won a Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist, and in 2002 an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. Bush was appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to music.
I never 'got' Kate Bush and found her voice harsh and screechy, her dancing rather dated and second rate and franky the Wind and Wuthering schtick unbearable but her collaborations with Peter G made me sit up . . . . . still didn't like it though!
The only song they did toieghter that got me was 'Don't Give Up' largely thanks to Peter's work but hey . . . . . each too their own hey?!


Jeff over at Behind The Grooves says . . .  :


Born on this day: July 30, 1958 - Singer, songwriter and musician Kate Bush (born Catherine Bush in Bexleyheath, Kent, UK). Happy 61st Birthday, Kate!!

1959 - Vaughan Toulouse
Vaughan Toulouse, Dept S. He died from an Aids related illness in 1991, Dept S had the 1981 UK No.22 single 'Is Vic There'.


1968 - Louise Wener

Louise Wener, singer, songwriter from English Britpop band Sleeper, who scored the 1996 UK No.10 single 'Sale Of The Century'.  Sleeper recorded four full-length albums: Smart, The It Girl, Pleased to Meet You, and The Modern Age.
 After the band split in 1998, Wener began a successful writing career



1968 - Sean Moore
Sean Moore, drums, Manic Street Preachers, (1996 UK No.2 single 'A Design For Life' 1998 UK No.1 album 'This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours').


Other news



with thanks to This Day In Music . . .