October 27, 1998 - PEGGY Lee was one of the smoothest and sexiest female singers of all time, no question, and it was 13 years ago today she was hospitalised after suffering a stroke. Ms. Lee's final later years were dogged by ill-health and lawsuits, the songstress having been ripped off blind - as is a music industry reality - by the corporate record companies and film companies, Disney and Universal Music Group, who still believe they own creativity. She won her suit against Disney, winning $2.3 million in 1991, recouping royalties from videocassette sales of the cartoon movie, Lady and the Tramp. And just a week before her death, she earned a preliminary approval of $4.75 million in a class lawsuit (she was the lead plaintiff of a group of Decca recording artists) for royalties against Universal Music Group. It is just so evil and criminal that these companies still get away with these atrocious crimes against creative songwriters and singers. During her final years Peggy Lee was semi-confined to a wheelchair and due to circulation problems and accidental falls, she valiantly continued performing until suffering a stroke in 1998. She died of a heart attack three years later. Miss Peggy Lee, as she was always introduced, was a class act all the way and, in talent, is often deemed a smooth, self-contained combination of Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday. I love Peggy Lee, and here are two videos of two of her classic number one hit songs. R.I.P. Peggy Lee.
1956 - CLARENCE 'Frogman' Henry comes from the Fats Domino school of back-beat piano New Orleans, Louisiana styled rock'n'roll, and has had his own hits within that genre. His first hit was the much-covered, Aint Got No Home, released today in 1956. A half century later, and Henry was inducted into Louisiana's own Music Hall Of Fame 2007, and performed a medley of his two #1 hits from the late fifties/sixties, You Always Hurt The One You Love, and I Do...aged walker and all.
1957 - THE Crickets started a three-week run topping world music charts with That'll Be The Day, a song co-penned by their leader, Buddy Holly, along with Jerry Allison. Due to the usual record company legal attempts at owning creativity, this song was released as just the Crickets, without mentioning Holly's name, as he had already signed to another label to escape the ownership syndrome of the record label releasing this song. Indeed there are three versions of this song floating around. Don't ask me where I ripped this video, but as far as I can see it's the only full video on the net of Buddy Holly and his band performing this song. Could well have been from UK television, and if it was, would've been famously watched by a very young John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
1962 - THE Shadows scored their second chart-topping album, Out Of The Shadows, today. The shadows had two careers, one as Cliff Richard's backing band, but another as instrumental specialists. At this time in rock'n'roll's evolution it was all about a singer up front with a backing band, or a band that sang as well as played its instruments. The Shadows began another trend of just instrumental guitar tunes, and it proved to be a popular formula. The established Shadows' multi-year, multi-hit run stand-alone career took off around the world in 1960 when they recorded the Jerry Lordan instrumental, Apache. The song was recorded in June 1960 at the famous EMI Abbey Road Studio in London. This is absolute video archive gold.
1966 - REACH Out I'll Be There is a song recorded by Motown act the four tops, and 45 years ago today it became the #1 hit in the UK, and soon topped world charts. It first reached top of the charts in America a couple of weeks beforehand. Written and produced by Motown's main production/songwriting team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song is one of the most well-known Motown tunes of the 1960s and is today considered the four Tops' signature song. It's ranked as one of the Top 500 songs of all time Rolling Stone magazine.
1960 - BEN E King started his step towards recorded music immortality today, when he began recording the classic songs Stand By Me, and Spanish Harlem. Ben E King was one of the first and one of the best of the soul singers of the sixties, who made the crossover to pop and rock, thus influencing an entire generation of singers. King rich, crackling, soulful voice, along with his stagger-charm phrasing has since been a major influence on many singers. Check out this clip, with the original song PLUS River Phoenix in the moving movie, Stand by Me, a well-received coming-of-age film based on a novella by Stephen King.
1964 - COME See About Me was released by the Supremes 47 years ago today, and whenever I hear this song it gives me a strong flashback to the latter part of my teens, just 17, and you know what I mean, and I just knew life was forever and I'd live forever...oh yes, what about you?…love this song for that reason alone, it ignites the flavours of the time for me, the soundtrack of my life.
1975 - A year after he simultaneously appearing on the front cover of Time and Newsweek magazines, Bruce Springsteen was fast becoming 'the boss', and one of the boss songs to enhance that tag was this one, Thunder Road, which is the opening track on his 1975 breakthrough album Born to Run. It is ranked as one of Springsteen's greatest songs, and often appears on lists of the top rock songs of all time, such as, for instance, Rolling Stone magazine, which place it as #86 on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Thanks to youtuber, jackfn1234, here's a look at the song, live, bootlegged tonight in 1975.
1982 - WE'D love to play a Prince clip to commemorate the release, on this day, of his iconic song 1999. Sadly, the princely one has banned videos from public consumption, so we cannot do that. On the same day in 1984, during tour across America, the Grateful Dead allocated a specific recording area for fans to bootleg the show, & tonight's gig was in Berkeley, California. Same day, same year, across the pond in England, Scottish group, Big Country, topped charts with Steel Town, and four years later on the same day U2's film Rattle And Hum, received its world wide premiere in the group's hometown Dublin. On this day in 1990, one of the most entertaining band leaders of the forties, Xavier Cugat, died of heart failure at the age of 90. You wanna see some moving music from this excitement king? Here's a sexy version of one of his songs, She's A Bombshell From Brooklyn, ably sung here by Lina Romay, and I reckon Lina's a bit of a bombshell, too. Incidentally, she died almost two years ago.
1956 - CLARENCE 'Frogman' Henry comes from the Fats Domino school of back-beat piano New Orleans, Louisiana styled rock'n'roll, and has had his own hits within that genre. His first hit was the much-covered, Aint Got No Home, released today in 1956. A half century later, and Henry was inducted into Louisiana's own Music Hall Of Fame 2007, and performed a medley of his two #1 hits from the late fifties/sixties, You Always Hurt The One You Love, and I Do...aged walker and all.
1957 - THE Crickets started a three-week run topping world music charts with That'll Be The Day, a song co-penned by their leader, Buddy Holly, along with Jerry Allison. Due to the usual record company legal attempts at owning creativity, this song was released as just the Crickets, without mentioning Holly's name, as he had already signed to another label to escape the ownership syndrome of the record label releasing this song. Indeed there are three versions of this song floating around. Don't ask me where I ripped this video, but as far as I can see it's the only full video on the net of Buddy Holly and his band performing this song. Could well have been from UK television, and if it was, would've been famously watched by a very young John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
1962 - THE Shadows scored their second chart-topping album, Out Of The Shadows, today. The shadows had two careers, one as Cliff Richard's backing band, but another as instrumental specialists. At this time in rock'n'roll's evolution it was all about a singer up front with a backing band, or a band that sang as well as played its instruments. The Shadows began another trend of just instrumental guitar tunes, and it proved to be a popular formula. The established Shadows' multi-year, multi-hit run stand-alone career took off around the world in 1960 when they recorded the Jerry Lordan instrumental, Apache. The song was recorded in June 1960 at the famous EMI Abbey Road Studio in London. This is absolute video archive gold.
1966 - REACH Out I'll Be There is a song recorded by Motown act the four tops, and 45 years ago today it became the #1 hit in the UK, and soon topped world charts. It first reached top of the charts in America a couple of weeks beforehand. Written and produced by Motown's main production/songwriting team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, the song is one of the most well-known Motown tunes of the 1960s and is today considered the four Tops' signature song. It's ranked as one of the Top 500 songs of all time Rolling Stone magazine.
1960 - BEN E King started his step towards recorded music immortality today, when he began recording the classic songs Stand By Me, and Spanish Harlem. Ben E King was one of the first and one of the best of the soul singers of the sixties, who made the crossover to pop and rock, thus influencing an entire generation of singers. King rich, crackling, soulful voice, along with his stagger-charm phrasing has since been a major influence on many singers. Check out this clip, with the original song PLUS River Phoenix in the moving movie, Stand by Me, a well-received coming-of-age film based on a novella by Stephen King.
1964 - COME See About Me was released by the Supremes 47 years ago today, and whenever I hear this song it gives me a strong flashback to the latter part of my teens, just 17, and you know what I mean, and I just knew life was forever and I'd live forever...oh yes, what about you?…love this song for that reason alone, it ignites the flavours of the time for me, the soundtrack of my life.
1975 - A year after he simultaneously appearing on the front cover of Time and Newsweek magazines, Bruce Springsteen was fast becoming 'the boss', and one of the boss songs to enhance that tag was this one, Thunder Road, which is the opening track on his 1975 breakthrough album Born to Run. It is ranked as one of Springsteen's greatest songs, and often appears on lists of the top rock songs of all time, such as, for instance, Rolling Stone magazine, which place it as #86 on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Thanks to youtuber, jackfn1234, here's a look at the song, live, bootlegged tonight in 1975.
1982 - WE'D love to play a Prince clip to commemorate the release, on this day, of his iconic song 1999. Sadly, the princely one has banned videos from public consumption, so we cannot do that. On the same day in 1984, during tour across America, the Grateful Dead allocated a specific recording area for fans to bootleg the show, & tonight's gig was in Berkeley, California. Same day, same year, across the pond in England, Scottish group, Big Country, topped charts with Steel Town, and four years later on the same day U2's film Rattle And Hum, received its world wide premiere in the group's hometown Dublin. On this day in 1990, one of the most entertaining band leaders of the forties, Xavier Cugat, died of heart failure at the age of 90. You wanna see some moving music from this excitement king? Here's a sexy version of one of his songs, She's A Bombshell From Brooklyn, ably sung here by Lina Romay, and I reckon Lina's a bit of a bombshell, too. Incidentally, she died almost two years ago.
