1956 - Johnny Cash released his classic song, 'I Walk the Line', a pledge of fidelity to his first wife. Cash finds it much harder to be true and strikes up an affair with June Carter, whom he later marries. It became his first No.1 country hit. The unique chord progression for the song was inspired by backwards playback of guitar runs on Cash's tape recorder while he was in the Air Force stationed in Germany. In his autobiography, Cash wrote that it "sounded like spooky church music."
While performing the song on his TV show, Cash admitted that his eerie hum at the beginning of each verse was to get his pitch. The song required Cash to change keys several times while singing it.
1964 - The Beatles received $140,000 dollars for the rights to having their pictures included in packages of bubble gum with Topps in the USA.
Topps had been doing quite well selling baseball cards since 1950, and knew a golden opportunity was at hand. The original series featured a total of 60 black and white entries in the set, and sold for five cents a package.
1967 - Elvis marries Priscilla Beaulieu. The wedding ceremony took place at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas and although the marriage license was only $15, the wedding cake cost $3,500.
1969 - Joni Mitchell releases Clouds. Guitar alone is used in accompaniment, and the variety of playing approaches and sounds gotten here is most impressive paired with imaginatively unusual and subtle harmonies. Mitchell's classic singer/songwriter standards "Chelsea Morning" and "Both Sides Now" respectively receive energetically vibrant and warmly thoughtful performances. Mitchell's riveting self-portrait on the album's cover is a further asset. This essential release is a must-listen.
1971 - One of The Rolling Stones' biggest singles, "Brown Sugar," was released. Mick Jagger wrote the lyric. According to Bill Wyman, it was partially inspired by a backup singer named Claudia Lennear, who was one of Ike Turner's Ikettes. The lyrics are messy and ambiguous, mashing up themes of race, slavery , violence and non-consensual, possibly underage sex. And drugs maybe...
Speaking to Rolling Stone in 1995, Sir Mick said: ‘God knows what I’m on about in that song. It’s such a mishmash. All the nasty subjects in one go. I never would write that song now.’
When asked why, the rocker replied: ’I would probably censor myself. I’d think, “Oh God, I can’t. I’ve got to stop. I can’t just write raw like that.”’ (Photo by CENTRAL PRESS / AFP) (Photo by -/CENTRAL PRESS/AFP via Getty Images)
1971 - Bill Withers releases his debut, Just As I Am. Withers immediately carved a distinct niche for himself within soul music by integrating folkier, more introspective elements than what was being heard almost anywhere else within the style.
The lilting, melancholy "Ain't No Sunshine" was the deserved smash hit from the record, but there were a bunch of fine effervescently grooving songs on the rest of the album like "Harlem," "Sweet Wanomi," "Moanin' and Groanin'," and "Better Off Dead." All the material was original save covers of Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'" and the Beatles' "Let It Be," both of which Withers made over into his own memorable acoustic-based soul style.
1972 - The Eagles release the song Take It Easy. Jackson Browne started writing "Take It Easy" for his first album, but he didn't know how to finish it. His LA upstairs neighbor was Glenn Frey, who needed songs for his new band - the Eagles. Frey came up with a key lyric: "It's a girl, my lord, in a flatbed Ford, slowing down to take a look at me." Glenn described the unfinished version of the song as a "package without the ribbon."
1984 - Fleetwood Mac drummer Mick Fleetwood filed for bankruptcy. It was reported that the drummer had spent thousands of dollars of cocaine a month, and had refused to listen to financial advisers, buying up several homes, a $400,000 spread in Hawaii and a $1.8 million farm outside Sydney, Australia.
2000 - David Gray's album White Ladder, which has been available in Europe for over a year, is finally issued in America as the first release on Dave Matthews' new label, ATO Records. In fact Dave watched Gray perform outside of Albums On The Hill during a radio convention they were both playing at and became friends.
‘We recorded it in the bedroom – and on Babylon you can hear a car going right past the house’ -David Gray
Each song is strong and superbly crafted, both in terms of arrangement and delivery. Other standouts, "Please Forgive Me" and "This Year's Love", and "Sail Away."
2017 - At the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, John Popper, Susan Tedeschi, Widespread Panic and many other artists perform at a tribute to Col. Bruce Hampton in celebration of his 70s birthday. Hampton, a mentor to many of these musicians, collapses on stage and dies during the encore. "Bruce was the only person I could think of who has ever played at his own funeral," his friend Scott McKinney says.
Birthdays:
Little Walter was born today in 1930. The most influential and formally innovative harmonica player in post-war blues, Little Walter radically changed the way most artists approached the blues harp. He wasn't the first to amplify his instrument, but the way he used a microphone and amp along with it dramatically changed the sound and impact of the harp, giving it force along with volume, and practically every electric blues act learned from his work -- what Jimi Hendrix did for electric guitar, Little Walter did for the blues harp.
Judy Collins is 85. Of the artists who enjoyed success during the folk music boom of the early '60s, very few have had a career as long and varied as Judy Collins, in large part because she's displayed a stylistic range matched by few of her peers. While Collins is a gifted songwriter who penned a few of her best songs, it's her talent and versatility as an interpretive vocalist that has brought her lasting success.
The CSN classic Suite: Judy Blue Eyes was written about her. Collins and Stills were dating at the time.
BTW, she got her start playing at clubs in Denver and Boulder and is now a member of the Colorado Music Hall Of Fame
Rita Coolidge is 79. A versatile singer blessed with a clear, pure voice, Rita Coolidge is a capable stylist in rock, pop, R&B, country, and folk, and has been a hugely in-demand session vocalist outside of her own solo recording career. She also married Kris Kristofferson in 1973, the same year she recorded a duet album with him titled Full Moon. Full Moon topped the country charts, and "From the Bottle to the Bottom" won a Grammy for Best Country Vocal by a Duo or Group.
How about another Stephen Stills connection? The giraffe on the cover of his solo debut is apparently a message to Rita whom he had recently broken up with. Dude got around...
Ray Parker Jr is 70. He built a career as a songwriter and session musician for Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra, Chaka Khan, the Supremes, Tina Turner, and many others.
But Parker saw his most visible success when he was invited to write and perform “Ghostbusters” for the hit 1984 film. (Lindsay Buckingham, hot off “Holiday Road” for National Lampoon’s Vacation, had apparently said no.) A bass line from the song sounded so similar to “I Want a New Drug” by Huey Lewis and the News that it sparked an out-of-court settlement.
R.I.P.:
2023 - Gordon Lightfoot died at the age of 84 in Toronto. One of the leading singer/songwriters of the 1960s and '70s, Gordon Lightfoot was Canada's most successful contemporary folk artist, establishing himself as an important songwriter in the mid-'60s and becoming a major international recording star in the following decade. His songs were literate while remaining down to earth and he was able to deal with personal matters as well as global issues in a manner that was poetic and accessible.
Bob Dylan said of him, “Every time I hear a song of his, it's like I wish it would last forever.”
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, Metro CO UK,, Global Radio Uk, Far Out Magazine, Allmusic, Music This Day. Guardian, Song Facts and Wikipedia.
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