1922 - It's now 83 years to the day since American soprano, Jeannette Vreeland, sang the first radio concert from an airplane as she flew over New York City. Two years later, 1924, she had her concert debut with the New York Symphony Orchestra.
1955 - He was the man, remains the man, will always be the man who placed the bump and the grind quite firmly alongside the rock. For more Fats vids and info go to our search engine. Look at these young kids having so much fun playing fresh rock'n'roll. This was a million-seller for Fats and for the sanitised version from Pat Boone. But this is the version from Fats.
1958 - This was the day in 1958 when American pianist Harvey Lavan Van received worldwide recognition at age 23, when he achieved the honour of winnning the first quadrennial International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow - and it was at the height of the so-called 'cold war' between USA and USSR. Van Cliburn won praise, applause and respect for helping ease the tension, and was recognised for his efforts later in life.
1960 - The musical Bye Bye Birdie opened on Broadway in New York City. Originally titled Let's Go Steady, the satire on American society is set in 1958. The story was inspired by the phenomenon of popular singer Elvis Presley and his draft notice into the Army in 1957. The rock star character's name, Conrad Birdie, is word play on the name of Conway Twitty. Twitty is best remembered today for his long career as a country music star, but before that, in the late 1950s, he was one of Presley's rock 'n' roll rivals. The original Broadway production was a Tony Award-winning success. It spawned a London production and several major revivals, a sequel, a 1963 film and a 1995 television production. The show also became a popular choice for high school and college productions. I dare you to check out the movie trailer.
1963 - Sussing out their competitors, The Beatles left London and went down to Richmond on this day - according to train-spotting Stones fans - and met the Rolling Stones after a Stones concert in Richmond. Two years later on this day, and tiny pop star Millie Small appeared on ABC-TV's Shindig! and performed her infectious hit song, My Boy Lollipop. Dear reader, this is as cute as it gets, great, uplifting. Go with the flow of this vid, dear reader.
1967 - They were going to be the new Beatles, but the The Bee Gees forged their own individual path and styles and ended up being amongst the giants of the music industry. We go back 44 years to this, their first English single, New York Mining Disaster 1941.
1969 - The 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee TV special aired on NBC, and moving forward six years on the same date Motown Records and Stevie Wonder held a news conference to announce he had signed a '$13 million-plus contract with the label, a total motza in those days. And these days, cripes, a hundred bucks'll do me. Once again from the sublime to, we saw that this was the day in 1976 that Bay City Roller singer Eric Faulkner almost died after swallowing Seconal and Valium tablets. We all have our difficulties, don't we? Do you want to have a quick peak to see if your memory was right?
1980 - A New Jersey state assemblyman introduced a resolution to make Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run the official state song, and if you want to see this vid or other stuff about Bruce, go to our search engine, type in his name and see what we have. Same year, and Iron Maiden's self-titled debut album was released, and the electronic rockman, Gary Numan released The Touring Principle, a 45-minute concert video. It was the first commercially available home rock videocassette. This is a date Chrissie Hynde will never forget, because her band mate, Pete Farndon in the Pretenders died of a drug overdose at the age of 29. Chrissie fired him from the band the year before due to his drug problem. This is Pretenders circa 1983, probably on Top of the Pops in the UK. Just awesome they were.
1999 - Country music legend and icon Tammy Wynette's body was exhumed and an autopsy performed in Nashville at the request of her husband, George Richey. It was exhumed from her grave in an attempt to settle a dispute over how the country music legend died. A new autopsy was conducted on her a week after three of her daughters filed a wrongful death lawsuit against her doctor and her husband and manager, George Richey, claiming they were responsible for her death 12 months ago. Richey said he had requested the autopsy because of the allegations made against him.So, so sad. In death as in life.
