This is the week that was in matters musical …
1958, the first stereo records and phonographs hit the marketplace … demo LPs simulating planes taking off and the sound of ping-pong balls caroming between the left and right speakers are all the rage …
1960, Nancy Sinatra weds pop singer Tommy Sands … in five years the Sands run out on the dissolving marriage … Nancy dons her boots and walks …
1962, The Beatles hit Abbey Road recording studio for the first time, recording “Love Me Do” in about 16 takes with drummer Andy White … six years later to the week, Eric Clapton lays down one of the most famous solos ever on The Beatles tune “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” …
1963, first record companies forced their artists to cash in on The Twist craze, then the surf music boom … and now Muddy Waters is recording Muddy Waters: Folk Singer for Chess Records at Tel Mar Studios in Chicago … helping Muddy connect with his folkier side are Buddy Guy on second acoustic guitar, Clifton James on drums, and Chess stalwart Willie Dixon on bass … a folk album in name only, the tunes are mostly written by Muddy and/or Willie and include unplugged blues classics like “Good Morning Little School Girl” … in 1968, Chess will subject Muddy to recording a “psychedelic” album with funk session men and wah-wah pedals … Electric Mud features Muddy essaying his way through The Rolling Stones’ “Let’s Spend The Night Together” … how about that for acknowledging your roots? … what’s next? … Otis Redding recording “Satisfaction”? …
1964, Rod Stewart cuts his first single-the blues chestnut “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” …
1965, an ad in Variety announces auditions for the new TV show The Monkees … would-be Monkees who fail to make the cut include Stephen Stills, Danny Hutton later of Three Dog Night, songwriter Paul Williams, and Charles Manson … interesting how different people deal with disappointment …
1970, from the One-Hit Wonders Department: the good timey, washboard and jug band sound of Mungo Jerry reaches #3 on the U.S. pop charts with their debut single “In The Summertime” … Mungomania briefly took hold of the U.K. as the band shuffled its way to 10 top singles … but the U.S. quickly tired of the shtick … singer Ray Dorset finally called it quits later in the ’70s …
1973, porn star Linda Lovelace is deeply honored to introduce Elton John in his first Hollywood Bowl engagement …
1975, Steve Anderson brings new meaning to the phrase “blistering guitar solo,” when he sets an endurance record for guitar picking by going at it without a break for 114 hours, 7 minutes …
1978, Who drummer Keith Moon succumbs to an overdose of the drug Heminevrin prescribed to combat his alcoholism … an autopsy reveals that he’d washed down 32 of the pills with champagne … his death occurs in the same apartment in which Mama Cass of The Mamas & The Papas met her demise in 1974 …
1987, Jaco Pastorius, brilliant bassist with Weather Report, dies from a fractured skull suffered in a tussle with a nightclub bouncer …
1990, Tom Fogerty, 48, an original member of Creedence Clearwater Revival and brother of John, dies of tuberculosis … he had parted from the band at the height of its success in 1971, a casualty of sibling rivalry … and although Tom recorded a number of albums on his own, he never scored a hit after his CCR days …
1996, Wal-Mart refuses to carry Sheryl Crow’s second album because the song “Love is a Good Thing” includes the lyrics, “Watch out sister/Watch out brother/Watch our children as they kill each other/With a gun they bought at the Wal-Mart discount stores” … rumors that Wal-Mart employees started a band called Discounting Crows are unfounded …
1999, record mogul Sean “Puffy” Combs is ordered to attend an anger management class after being convicted of attacking the president of Interscope Records, Steve Stoute … lucky for Stoute the Puff man doesn’t shop at Wal-Mart …
2000, Rage Against the Machine bassist Timothy Commerford pleads guilty to charges of assault and disorderly conduct at the MTV Video Awards … while raging against Limp Bizkit’s acceptance of the award for Best Rock Video-which was coincidentally up against Rage’s video for “Sleep Now In The Fire”-Commerford climbed a 15-foot arch that was part of the stage set … stage hands and security swarmed the stage to extricate Tim, who would “sleep now in the slammer” … the soundtrack for Almost Famous is released … it’s notable for including four vintage Led Zeppelin tracks-a first for any soundtrack … Robert Plant and Jimmy Page agree to the tunes’ inclusion after falling in love with Cameron Crowe’s filmed semi-autobiographical remembrance of a teenaged rock journalist in the ’70s … however, Page/Plant don’t allow Crowe to use “Stairway to Heaven” for a scene in the theatrical release … in the subsequent director’s cut DVD version, Crowe shows the deleted scene and instructs viewers to cue up their CDs of “Stairway” and wait for the onscreen countdown to press play so the scene can be experienced the way Crowe intended it, as the actors respond to the lyrics and musical changes in the song …
2003, The Pixies announce that band members have buried the hatchet and will embark on a reunion tour in 2004 … the Pixies dust the competition, going on to huge success in the face of a lackluster touring season …
2004, a jet-lagged Elton John, set upon by Taiwanese paparazzi, has a hissy fit, calling them “rude, vile pigs!” … the 6th Circuit Court in Cincinnati rules that artists should pay for every sample they use … previously courts had held that as long as short samples could not be identified, licensing was unnecessary … in this new decision, the court, acknowledging other cases involving digital piracy says, “If you cannot pirate the whole sound recording, can you ‘lift’ or ‘sample’ something less than the whole? Our answer to that question is in the negative.” … ironically, a two-second sample of a Funkadelic record in NWA’s “100 Miles and Runnin” was at the heart of the ruling … Funkadelic and Parliament leader and founder George Clinton has historically been supportive of sampling, having produced two albums titled Sample Some of Dis and Sample Some of Dat, that permitted remixers to use Clinton’s music without legal considerations …
2005, getting back to basics, The Rolling Stones release A Bigger Bang, their first studio album in eight years … the 16 new Jagger-Richards songs are stripped-down rockers and country-tinged numbers and there’s nary a guest star in sight … Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, versatile blues, cajun, jazz, and R&B guitarist, vocalist, and fiddler, dies in Baton Rouge at his brother’s house after leaving his home in Slidell, LA, due to Hurricane Katrina …
2006, Paul McCartney agrees to donate $3 million to Adopt-a-Minefield after having backed out of playing a benefit for the charity hosted by his estranged wife Heather Mills … apparently, Pat Benetar was right, love is a battlefield … after being found guilty of tax evasion, the IRS orders Ron Isley to pay $3.1 million in delinquent taxes and sentences him to 37 months in prison … the 65-year-old Isley, who is rebounding from kidney cancer and a stroke, will probably do his time in a federal prison hospital … Linda Ronstadt cancels the balance of her 2006 tour schedule after undergoing surgery for an unspecified condition … a documentary about Kurt Cobain is debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival … titled Kurt Cobain: About a Son, the film is based on more than 25 hours of audio interviews with the Nirvana frontman recorded for a biography that was scratched following Cobain’s suicide in 1994 … filmmaker AJ Schnack edited down the tapes in which the troubled Cobain recalls his childhood, domestic troubles, and the downside of fame, matching them up with newly-created stills of places significant to Cobain … Athens, Georgia, music fans get an unexpected thrill when R.E.M. shows up unannounced at a fundraiser at the 40 Watt Club … drummer Bill Berry, who split the band in 1997 to become a gentleman farmer, rejoins his bandmates to rip through a set of faves …
Arrivals:
September 6: bluesman Jimmy Reed (1925), blues drummer Fred Below (1926), Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters (1943), Dave Bargeron of Blood Sweat & Tears (1942), androgynous disco star Silvester aka Silvester James (1947), Dennis “Fast Fingers” Kambury (1953), Perry Bamonte of The Cure (1960), Pal Waaktar of A-Ha (1961), CeCe Peniston (1969), Dolores O’Riordon of The Cranberries (1971), Nina Persson of The Cardigans (1974), Foxy Brown (1979)
September 7: Hank Williams (1923), tenor sax giant Sonny Rollins (1930), bluesman Little Milton (Campbell) (1934), Buddy Holly born Charles Hardin Holley (1936), Joe Negroni of Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers (1940), Continental Drift’s Jim Gault (1943), Alfa Anderson of Chic (1946), disco diva Gloria Gaynor (1949), Chrissie Hynde (1951), session guitarist Chuck Beattie (1954), Brad Houser of Edie Brickell & New Bohemians (1960), Chris Acland of Lush (1966), Chad Sexton of 311 (1970), Eazy-E of N.W.A. (1973)
September 8: composer Antonin Dvorak (1841), “The Singing Brakeman” Jimmie Rodgers (1897), Western swing pioneer Milton Brown (1903), Modern Records co-founder Jules Bihari (1913), Patsy Cline born Virginia Patterson Hensley (1932), soul sermonizer Joe Tex (1933), Dante Drowty of Dante & The Evergreens (1941), Brian Cole of The Association (1944), Cathy Jean (1945), Kelly Groucutt of E.L.O. (1945), Ron “Pigpen” McKernan of The Grateful Dead (1945), Atlanta Rhythm Section’s Dean Daughtry (1946), David Steele of Fine Young Cannibals (1960)
September 9: Jacob Carey of The Flamingos (1926), jazz drummer Elvin Jones (1927), soul singer Otis Redding (1941), Inez Foxx (1944), Billy Preston (1946), Iron Butterfly’s Doug Ingle (1947), Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics (1952)
September 10: R&B shouter Roy Brown (1925), vibist Roy Ayers (1940), Danny Hutton of Three Dog Night (1942), Jose Feliciano (1945), Barrymore Barlow of Jethro Tull (1949), Aerosmith’s Joe Perry (1950), Don Powell of Slade (1950), Johnny Fingers of Boomtown Rats (1956), Siobhan Fahey of Bananarama (1957), Cracker’s Dave Lowrey (1960), Bush drummer Robin Goodridge (1966), Big Daddy Kane (1968)
September 11: tenor saxman Bobby Fields (1928), Bernard Dwyer of Freddie And The Dreamers (1940), fingerstyle guitar virtuoso Leo Kottke (1945), Mickey Hart (1950), Tommy Shaw of STYX (1953), Jon Moss of Culture Club (1957), bassist Victor Wooten (1964), Moby born Richard Melville Hall (1965), Harry Connick, Jr. (1967), Ludacris (1977)
September 12: Maurice Chevalier (1888), blues singer Alger “Texas” Alexander (1900), Mel “The Velvet Fog” Torme (1925), country vocalist George Jones (1931), Warren Corbin of The Cleftones (1943), Maria Muldaur (1943), suave soulman Barry White (1944), Gerry Beckley of America (1952), Rush drummer Neil Peart (1952), Barry Andrews of XTC (1956), Larry LaLonde of Primus (1968), Liam Gallagher of Oasis (1972)
Departures:
September 6: co-founder of Atari Teenage Riot, Carl Crack (2001), standup country bassist Roy Husky Jr. (1997), Tom Fogerty of CCR (1990), Josh White (1964)
September 7: Erma Franklin, sister of Aretha (2002), composer Niccolo Castiglioni (1996), Keith Moon (1978)
September 8: songwriter Dick Heard (1998), Beatle publicist Derek Taylor (1997), Jack Vigliatura and Bill White of For Squirrels (1996), rapper Cowboy AKA Keith Wiggins of The Furious Five (1989)
September 9: conga player Miguel “Anga” Diaz (2006), singer-songwriter Lucio Battisti (1998), bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe (1996), Sandra Tilley of Martha Reeves & The Vandellas (1983)
September 10: Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown (2005), zydeco accordionist Beau Jocque (1999)
September 11: Raybeez AKA Raymond Barbieri of Warzone (1997), Peter Tosh (1987)
September 12: Nashville session drummer Kenny Buttrey (2004), Johnny Cash (2003), Stanley Turrentine (2000), ABBA producer Stig “Stikkan” Anderson (1997), Jaco Pastorius (1987)