This Day In Music

[xoxoxoBruce]

Truth!

[Gravdigr]

March 13

1971 - Brewer and Shipley entered the US singles chart with 'One Toke Over The Line'.



The song, which featured Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia on steel guitar, peaked at No.10 despite being banned by radio stations for its drug references. Brewer and Shipley maintained that the word "toke" meant "token" as in ticket, hence the line "waitin' downtown at the railway station, one toke over the line."


1993 - Eric Clapton started a three-week run at No.1 on the US album chart with Unplugged.



It remains the most successful and best-selling live album ever, winning two Grammy awards at the 35th Annual Grammy Awards in 1993. It is also Clapton's best-selling album ever, having sold 26 million copies worldwide.

[glatt]

I feel like I might have that Clapton cd

[Gravdigr]

I know I have it. It's a trainload of awesome.

[Gravdigr]

March 15

1975 - The number one single in America was Black Water, by The Doobie Brothers.

[Gravdigr]

March 20, 1991

Eric Clapton's four year old son, Conor, fell to his death from the 53rd story of a New York City apartment after a housekeeper who was cleaning the room left a window open. The boy was in the custody of his mother, Italian actress Lori Del Santo, and the pair were visiting a friend's apartment. Clapton was staying in a nearby hotel after taking his son to the circus the previous evening. The tragedy inspired his song ‘Tears in Heaven’ [which won 6 Grammys].

[Gravdigr]

April 5 - not necessarily known as a good day for music.

1980 - R.E.M. played their first ever gig when they appeared at St Mary's Episcopal Church, Athens, Georgia. Michael Stipes' flailing elbows knocked over three church pews, a statue of the Babby Jeebus, and ol' lady Hopkins.

1981 - Canned Heat singer Bob "The Bear" Hite died of a heart attack aged 36.

1984 - Marvin Gaye's funeral took place at Forest Lawn Cemetery, Los Angeles.

1994 - Kurt Cobain committed suicide by shooting himself in the head at his home in Seattle. Cobain's body wasn't discovered until April 8, by an electrician who had arrived to install a security system, who initially believed that Cobain was asleep, until he saw the shotgun pointing at his chin. A suicide note was found that said, "I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music, along with really writing . . . for too many years now". A high concentration of heroin and traces of Valium were found in Cobain's body. His death was officially ruled as suicide by a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head.

1995 - Monika Dannerman, the one time girlfriend of Jimi Hendrix committed suicide, two days after losing a court battle with another of the guitarist's ex-lovers.

1998 - British drummer Cozy Powell (Colin Flooks) was killed when his car smashed into crash barriers on the M4 motorway near Bristol, England. Powell had worked with the Jeff Beck Group, Whitesnake, Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Brian May, Peter Green and the ELP spin-off Emerson, Lake, and Powell. Powell, known as one of the most driving drummers in rock, had also had hits as a solo artist, including Dance With The Devil and The Man In Black, and had fronted his own band, Cozy Powell's Hammer.

2002 - American singer Layne Staley, of Alice in Chains, was found dead from a mixture of heroin and cocaine in his home. It was reported that the 6-foot (1.8 m) Staley weighed only 86 pounds (39 kg) when his body was discovered. His body was partially decomposed when he was found. Medical examiners had to identify it by dental records.

2006 - Gene Pitney was found dead aged 65 in his bed in a Cardiff hotel. The American singer was on a UK tour and had shown no signs of illness. Pitney helped The Rolling Stones break the American market with his endorsement of the band. Jagger and Richards wrote his hit 'That Girl Belongs to Yesterday'.

2007 - Former KISS guitarist Mark St. John died from an apparent brain hemorrhage, at the age of 51. St. John was Kiss' third official guitarist, having replaced Vinnie Vincent in 1984 and appeared on the album 'Animalize'.

2011 - A statue in tribute to Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain was unveiled in his hometown of Aberdeen, Washington, The unveiling marked the 17th anniversary of Cobain's death, which occurred on April 5, 1994. The statue designed by local artists Kim and Lora Malakoff was of his signature Fender Jag-Stang guitar. The concrete guitar was eight and a half feet tall and also featured a ribbon with lyrics written on it from Nirvana's 'On a Plain'. It reads: "One more special message to go and then I'm done and I can go home."

2012 - Jim Marshall, who made rock ’n’ roll rawer and noisier by inventing the Marshall amplifier died at a hospice in London, aged 88. His amplifiers and speakers known as 'Marshall stacks' were used by Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and almost every other major rock guitarist in the ’60s and ’70s and by the next generation of guitarists as well, including Kurt Cobain, Eddie Van Halen and Slash.

Man. What is it about the fifth of April?

[Gravdigr]

June 2

1967 - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,



by The Beatles, is released in the United States.

[Gravdigr]

June 20

On this day in 1969 David Bowie recorded the album version of Space Oddity.

[Gravdigr]

July 2

1956 - Elvis Presley recorded 'Hound Dog' at RCA Studios, New York. Take number 31 being the version they released. This was the first time The Jordanaires worked with Presley. The single sold over 10 million copies globally, became his best-selling song and topped the pop chart for 11 weeks, a record that stood for 36 years.

1962 - Jimi Hendrix was honourably discharged from the 101st Airborne Paratroopers, after breaking his ankle during his 26th and final parachute jump.

1979 - Sony introduced the Walkman, the first portable audio cassette player. Over the next 30 years they sold over 385 million Walkmans in cassette, CD, mini-disc and digital file versions, and were the market leaders until the arrival of Apple's iPod and other new digital devices.

2007 - Lyricist Hy Zaret, who wrote the words for the song 'Unchained Melody' died at his home in Westport, Connecticut, aged 99. The song (which does not feature the word "unchained"), has been recorded over 300 times. Zaret co-wrote the song with film composer Alex North for the 1955 prison film Unchained.

Prison movie?! With this knowledge...

I beg you to listen to this song again, as Tyrone and Bubba would sing it to each other in the showers of Cell Block C.

It's a whole 'nother song now, ain't it?

[Gravdigr]

On July 16, 1981, Harry Chapin was driving in the left lane on the Long Island Expressway at about 65 mph (105 km/h) on the way to perform at a free concert scheduled for later that evening at Eisenhower Park in East Meadow, New York. Near exit 40 in Jericho, he put on his emergency flashers, presumably because of either a mechanical or medical problem. He then slowed to about 15 miles (24 km) per hour and veered into the center lane, nearly colliding with another car. He swerved left, then to the right again, ending up directly in the path of a tractor-trailer truck. The truck could not brake in time and rammed the rear of Chapin's blue 1975 Volkswagen Rabbit, rupturing the fuel tank as it climbed up and over the back of the car, which burst into flames. Dr. Minoru Araki, Nassau County's deputy chief medical examiner, said Chapin's aorta was lacerated by the tremendous impact and he died of massive hemorrhaging into his chest cavity. Araki said a report that Chapin may have suffered a heart attack at the wheel was erroneous. "He suffered a cardiac arrest as the result of his severe injuries, but the autopsy showed that his heart was in very good condition," Araki said.

[Gravdigr]

Elvis Aaron Presley

January 8, 1935 - August 16, 1977

[BigV]

Fuck 16 Aug, I mean, really.

[Gravdigr]

Totally. Really bad date for likeable people.

[Gravdigr]

1969, The Rolling Stones started a four week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Honky Tonk Women' the group's fifth US No.1. The song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards was inspired by Brazilian gauchos at the ranch where Jagger and Richards were staying in Matao, Sao Paulo.

~http://www.thisdayinmusic.com/

I defy you to listen to Honky Tonk Women by The Rolling Stones and be put in mind of Brazillian gauchos.