1889 - Today, April 16, Charlie Chaplin would have been 122 years old. Sir Charles Spencer 'Charlie' Chaplin, was the English comic actor, film director and composer who captured the imagination, the tear ducts and the emotions of a generation...and beyond. Best-known for his work during the silent film era, Chaplin became one of the most famous film stars in the world before the end of the First World War. He used mime, slapstick and other visual comedy routines, and continued well into the era of the talkies, though his films decreased in frequency from the end of the 1920s. His most famous role was that of The Tramp, which he first played in the Keystone comedy Kid Auto Races at Venice in 1914. From the April 1914 one-reeler Twenty Minutes of Love onwards he was writing and directing most of his films, and by 1916 he was also producing them, and from 1918 he was composing the music for them. With Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith, he co-founded United Artists in 1919, making him amongst the first indie actors, able to pick their own movies, their own scripts...and their own fees. Chaplin was one of the most creative and influential personalities of the silent-film era, heavily influenced, as he was, by his predecessor, the French silent film comedian Max Linder, to whom he dedicated one of his films. His working life in entertainment spanned over 75 years, from the Victorian stage and the Music Hall in the United Kingdom as a child performer, until close to his death at the age of 88. His high-profile public and private life encompassed both adulation and controversy. Chaplin's identification with the left ultimately forced him to resettle in Europe during the McCarthy era in the early 1950s. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Chaplin the 10th greatest male screen legend of all time. In 2008, Martin Sieff, in a review of the book Chaplin: A Life, wrote: "Chaplin was not just 'big', he was gigantic. In 1915, he burst onto a war-torn world bringing it the gift of comedy, laughter and relief while it was tearing itself apart through World War I. Over the next 25 years, through the Great Depression and the rise of Adolf Hitler, he stayed on the job. ... It is doubtful any individual has ever given more entertainment, pleasure and relief to so many human beings when they needed it the most". George Bernard Shaw called Chaplin "the only genius to come out of the movie industry". Smile is a song based on an instrumental theme used in the soundtrack for the 1936 Charlie Chaplin movie Modern Times. Chaplin composed the music, while John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons added the lyrics and title in 1954. This is the Chaplin-penned song, sung here by one of his biggest fans, Michael Jackson. Following that there's Chapin's brillliant speech in his ironic movie, Great Dictator, in 1940, the brilliant message of the speech still relevant today.
1954 - This is the day that Roy Orbison's life changed when he attended an Elvis Presley show in Dallas, Texas. Has there been anyone who has written so many beautiful songs, and sung them oh so well, as the Big O?
1956 - It's 55 years ago, and one of rock's true pioneer legends, Buddy Holly released his first single, the neo-rockabilly, Blue Days, Black Nights.
1965 - Almost a decade after Buddy's debut single, Brit group The Hollies opened their first tour of the U.S. at the Brooklyn Paramount theater, today, in New York. Could not find a clip of the band for this gig, so how about this video of them performing their only #1 hit in the UK during the sixties, live, on this Dutch TV show entitled Rooster, same year.
1971 - It's amazing to see how the Stones actually got away with performing this song live on British tele, the lyrics being what they were, and in prime family viewing time. This is the day The Rolling Stones released Brown Sugar in the UK, and it was the first record on their own label, Rolling Stones Records.
1972 - They were the first rock'n'roll band to incorporate a little classical instrumentation into their live performances, and here they perform their hit version of Chuck Berry's Roll Over Beethoven in England...with a little shot of rhythm'n'blues, with just a dash of Beethoven on the side, this is Elecric Light Orchestra.
1973 - Paul McCartney starred in his first TV special, James Paul McCartney, almost 40 years ago today, and a year later Queen held its first U.S. concert at Regis College in Denver, CO. Regis College, Denver, Colorado. Special guests were Mott The Hoople, and tickets were just $7.50 and the local campus book store. Here's a promo video clip of Queen, same year, '74,
from their Sheer Heart Attack album.
1990 - More than 72,000 people gathered at London's Wembley Stadium for an anti-apartheid concert honouring Nelson Mandela, who had recently been released from prison. This is his speech, in two parts, followed by a general star-studded jam onstage with the greats of rock at that time...you'll know them all. Anyone who is not affected by the applause for Nelson, the speech from Nelson here, has no heart pumping.
1999 - Shania Twain became the first woman to be named as songwriter/artist of the year by the Nashville Songwriters Association International, and it was about time. Just three years later, same day, and Sony Music Entertainment filed a complaint against the Dixie Chicks for breach of contract. For 10 months Sony and the Dixie Chicks, who won back-to-back Grammys for their hit albums ''Wide Open Spaces'' and ''Fly,'' which have sold about 19 million copies combined in the United States, have been locked in a legal tangle over their contract. The group signed with Sony in 1995 and sued them for shoddy accounting methods, something that has always been rife within multi-national record companies. Here are Natalie Maines, Martie Seidel and Emily Robinson with Travelling Soldier.
