Today in Music History ~ 10/24

1788 ~ Sarah Hale, Poet, magazine editor, wrote Mary Had a Little Lamb

• 1904 ~ Moss Hart, Tony Award-winning director of My Fair Lady (1957), playwright, married to actress Kitty Carlisle

• 1911 ~ "Sonny" Terry (Saunders Terrell), American blues singer and harmonica player

1925 ~ Luciano Berio, Italian composer More information about Berio

• 1929 ~ George Crumb, American composer and teacher

• 1929 ~ The Rudy Vallee Show was broadcast for the first time over NBC radio. Actually, the Rudy Vallee show had several different titles over the years, all of which were referred to by the public as The Rudy Vallee Show. Megaphone-toting Rudy and his Connecticut Yankees band were mainstays on radio into the late 1940s.

• 1930 ~ J.P. (Jiles Perry) Richardson (The Big Bopper), singer, songwriter More about The Big Bopper
• 1936 ~ David Nelson, Actor, son of entertainers Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, brother of singer Ricky Nelson

• 1936 ~ Bill Wyman, Musician with The Rolling Stones, songwriter, London restaurant owner of Sticky Fingers

• 1937 ~ Santo Farina, Steel guitar with Santo & Johnny

• 1939 ~ F. Murray Abraham, Academy Award-winning actor for his portrayal of Salieri in "Amadeus" (about Mozart), 1984.

• 1939 ~ Let’s Dance was recorded on Columbia Records. It became the theme song for the band that recorded it, the Benny Goodman Band.

• 1946 ~ Jerry Edmonton, Drummer with Steppenwolf

• 1960 ~ Brenda Lee hit #1 for the second time in the year with I Want to Be Wanted. 1960 was a very good year for the young (age 15) songstress. In addition to her first #1 smash, I’m Sorry (July 18), Lee had two other songs on the charts: Sweet Nothin’s (#4, April 18) and That’s All You Gotta Do (#6, July 4).

• 1975 ~ Looking to name your own greatest hits album something other than Greatest Hits? Do what former Beatle John Lennon did, with his package of the best. Lennon called it, "Shaved Fish".

• 1977 ~ Gary Busey began filming The Buddy Holly Story. The star was a ringer for the rock idol.

• 1999 ~ Phillip Glass' "Dracula" score makes news.

• 2001 ~ Kim Gardner, a bassist who played with several bands, including the British rock group Ashton, Gardner & Dyke, died. He was 53. Gardner, born in London, joined fellow teen-age musicians Ron Wood, Ali McKenzie, Tony Munroe and Pete McDaniels to form the Thunderbirds. Shortening their name to the Birds, the band released four singles, including Leaving Here and No Good Without You Baby, both in 1965. Gardner's next group was Ashton, Gardner & Dyke with Tony Ashton and Roy Dyke in 1968. The trio, whose albums featured a light, jazz-rock style, scored a top-three hit in Britain with Resurrection Shuffle in 1971. The group broke up a year later. Gardner also toured with Pacific Gas and Electric and other bands in the 1970s. He played bass with everyone from Eric Clapton to Bo Didley, and worked on 27 albums. Gardner also was a successful pub master and restaurateur. Gardner toured the United States regularly before settling in Los Angeles in 1973. In 1982, he started the original, 50-seat Cat & Fiddle Restaurant and Pub. Over the years, Cat & Fiddle has been a favorite destination for British rockers such as Keith Moon, Robert Plant and Rod Stewart, as well as Hollywood celebrities.

Today in Music History ~ 10/20

1874 ~ Charles Edward Ives, American composer.  He was an innovative composer of the 20th century and is considered the first major composer from America. His works, which includes piano music and orchestral pieces, were often based on American themes. Aside from composing, Ives also ran a successful insurance agency.
More information on Ives

• 1913 ~ Grandpa (Louis Marshall) Jones, Country Music Hall of Famer, Grand Ole Opry, singer

• 1923 ~ Robert Craft, American conductor and writer

• 1935 ~ Jerry Orbach, American singer and actor for the musical theater

• 1937 ~ Wanda Jackson, Singer, songwriter

• 1939 ~ Jay Siegel, Singer with The Tokens

• 1939 ~ All the Things You Are was recorded by the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra on the Victor label. Jack Leonard was the featured vocalist.

• 1945 ~ Ric Lee, Drummer with Ten Years After

• 1950 ~ Tom Petty, Singer with The Traveling Wilburys

• 1951 ~ Al Greenwood, Keyboards with Foreigner

• 1955 ~ "Day-O. Day-ay-ay-ay-o!" One of the most popular of the Harry Belafonte hits was recorded for RCA Victor. Day-O didn’t make it to the pop charts for over a year, until January of 1957, after its name had been changed to The Banana Boat Song (Day-O).

1958 ~ Mark King, Bass, singer with Level 42

• 1962 ~ With Halloween just around the corner, we remember that Bobby "Boris" Picket and the Crypt Kickers reached the top of the charts this day (for two weeks) with The Monster Mash. And someone, somewhere, has resurrected it every Halloween since.

• 1962 ~ The musical, Mr. President, written by Irving Berlin, opened on Broadway. Mr. President ran for 265 performances.

• 1965 ~ The Beatles received a gold record for the single, Yesterday. This song marked the first time a cello was used in a pop hit.

• 2000 ~ Li Yundi, an 18-year-old virtuoso from China, has won Poland's Frederic Chopin piano competition, becoming one of the youngest players to capture the prestigious international prize. Read the whole story

Today in Music History ~ 10/17

• 1810 ~ Giovanni Matteo Mario, Italian tenor

1849 ~ Frédéric François Chopin died at the age of 39 due to pulmonary tuberculosis.  All of Chopin's works involve the piano. They are technically demanding but emphasize nuance and expressive depth. Chopin invented the musical form known as the instrumental ballade and made major innovations to the piano sonata, mazurka, waltz, nocturne, polonaise, étude, impromptu and prélude.

• 1892 ~ Herbert Howells, British composer

• 1909 ~ Cozy (William Randolph) Cole, Drummer. He played with Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, in films - Make Mine Music, The Glenn Miller Story and started a drummers’ school with Gene Krupa

• 1938 ~ This was a big day in Tinseltown. NBC moved to the corner of Sunset and Vine, the ‘Crossroads of the World’. The new Hollywood Radio City drew thousands of visitors ready to fill studio-audience seats for popular radio programs.

• 1940 ~ James Seals, Singer, guitar, saxophone, fiddle with Seals and Crofts

• 1940 ~ One year before recording that memorable song, Fry Me Cookie, with a Can of Lard, Will Bradley’s orchestra recorded Five O’Clock Whistle, also on Columbia Records.

• 1941 ~ Alan Howard, Bass with Brian Poole & The Tremeloes

• 1942 ~ Gary Puckett, Singer with The Union Gap

• 1945 ~ Actress Ava Gardner made news. She married bandleader Artie Shaw.

• 1946 ~ Jim Tucker, Guitarist with The Turtles until 1965

• 1949 ~ Bill Hudson, Comedian, singer with The Hudson Brothers, was married to actress Goldie Hawn

• 1953 ~ The first concert of contemporary Canadian music presented in the U.S. was performed by conductor Leopold Stokowski at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

• 1955 ~ Jose Ferrer and Claire Bloom starred on NBC’s Producer’s Showcase. They performed in "Cyrano De Bergerac". Ferrer also won an Oscar for his performance in the film version.

• 1958 ~ Alan Jackson, Singer

• 1962 ~ Though the ‘Fab Four’ would appear on both radio and television, on what they would call ‘Auntie Beeb’ (the BBC), The Beatles made their first appearance this day on Great Britain’s Grenada TV Network.

• 1967 ~ A controversial rock musical "Hair", opened on this day at the Anspacher Theatre in New York City. It ran for 1,742 performances and then became a movie.

• 1983 ~ Actor Anthony Quinn lit up the Great White Way in the revival of the 1968 musical, "Zorba", that reunited Quinn with Lila Kedrova, who played Madame Hortense. They both had appeared in the film portrayal, "Zorba the Greek", which won Quinn a nomination for Best Actor, and an Oscar for Kedrova as Best Supporting Actress. This was one of the few films that came before the Broadway show, rather than the reverse.

• 2003 ~ Bernard Schwartz, who produced "Coal Miner's Daughter," the Academy Award-nominated biopic of country singer Loretta Lynn, died of complications following a stroke. He was 85. Schwartz was a one-time Broadway child actor who got into television and film production in the 1950s, working on the popular paranormal suspense show "Alcoa Presents: One Step Beyond" and the hit science fiction film "Journey to the Center of the Earth." Schwartz' best known and most lauded production was "Coal Miner's Daughter," the 1980 film inspired by Lynn's song of the same name. Sissy Spacek won an Oscar for her portrayal of Lynn and the film won the Golden Globe award for best musical or comedy. It also was nominated for an Oscar for best picture. In 1985, Schwartz featured Patsy Cline's life in "Sweet Dreams," which was named for one of her songs and starred Jessica Lange as the music legend killed in a plane crash. He also produced country singer Amy Grant's 1986 TV special "Headin' Home for the Holidays" and worked with Priscilla Presley on the 1988 miniseries "Elvis and Me." Another of his best known productions was 1983's "Psycho II," the darkly humorous but far bloodier sequel to Hitchcock's 1960 thriller about troubled motel operator Norman Bates. Other feature films included "The Wackiest Ship in the Army," "Global Affair," which starred Bob Hope, and "Rage," which starred Glenn Ford. Schwartz also produced "That Man Bolt" and "Bucktown," both vehicles for former football star Fred Williamson, and the thriller "Roadgames" starring Stacey Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis.