1939 - This is the day that American entertainer Gene Autry recorded his signature tune, Back in the Saddle Again. Autry gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades beginning in the 1930s. He was also owner of the Los Angeles/California Angels Major League Baseball team from 1961 to 1997, a television station and several radio stations in Southern California. He is also known for his Christmas holiday songs, Here Comes Santa Claus (which he wrote), Frosty the Snowman, and his biggest hit, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. He is a member of both the Country Music and Nashville Songwriters halls of fame, and is the only celebrity to have five stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Possibly because he owned most of it at various stages.
1965 - The great, great Marian Anderson ended her 30-year singing career with a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City on this day. Toscanini claimed that contralto Marian Anderson had a voice that came along "once in a hundred years". But because she was black, Anderson's prospects as a classical singer in America were initially quite limited. Eventually, though, the magnitude of her talent won her broad recognition in the United States. She began touring regularly in 1935, and was quickly acknowledged as the world's greatest contralto. For a full bio and more vids for Ms. Anderson, please go to our archive.
1971 - The Jackson 5, Danny Thomas and Bill Cosby were guests on Diana Ross' solo TV special Diana. I am sure I saw this at the time. I had just left a band I was in and had moved from Melbourne, Australia, to Adelaide, Australia. Anyway...if you have time, check out this short preview.
1973 - Full details and a video from The Neil Young movie Journey Through the Past can be viewed by going to our archive section. The film debuted at the Dallas Film Festival 38 years ago today.
1975 - Couldn't find anything on the first TV special - which went to air 36 years ago today - by Alice Cooper, so here's a clip of him performing Welcome To My Nightmare, which featured on his special, Welcome To My Nightmare: The Making Of A Record Album.
1984 - This was the day that Michael Jackson went into surgery in Los Angeles, following damage done following the incident when Jackson's hair caught fire during the filming of a Pepsi-Cola commercial a couple of months earlier. The doctors had to perform scalp surgery. Here's a clip of the accident and comments from self-appointed experts.
1985 - Liberace grossed more than $2 million for his 21 shows at New York City's Radio City Music Hall. He broke his own record of grossing $1.6 million. Here's a clip from ET.
1985 - Wham! became the first Western act to release a pop album, Make It Big, in China, and for a video and details of the duo's China concert earlier in the year, go to our search engine.
2003 - The great, great Etta James received a star (#2,223) on the Hollywood Walk of Fame just eight years ago, and long overdue. Her musical style changed during the course of her career, after beginning recording in the mid-50s. She was marketed as an R&B and doo wop singer, and in 1960 signed to Chess Records in 1960. Etta James first broke through as a traditional pop-styled singer, covering jazz and pop music standards on her debut album, At Last. But her voice has since deepened and coarsened in the ensuing years, moving her musical style in these later years into the genres of soul and jazz. Anyone who thinks Beyonce does justice to Etta's song, At Last, just watch this and see how it should be sung...this is Etta James.
