February 3, 1959 - BUDDY HOLLY died in a plane crash 53 years ago today, along with Ritchie Valens & the Big Bopper - the crash has since been called the first tragic rock'n'roll fatal accident. Their plane went down near Clear Lake, Iowa, while the trio were in the middle of a three- week tour across the American Midwest. The accident ended the careers of Buddy Holly (22), Ritchie Valens (17), and the Big Bopper (28), though all three have since become legends, their music still selling today. The pilot of the single-engined Beechcraft Bonanza plane was also killed. Holly hired the plane after heating problems developed on his tour bus. All three were travelling to Fargo, North Dakota, for the next show on their Winter Dance Party Tour which Holly had set up, covering 24 cities in three weeks, to make money after the break-up of his band, The Crickets, in the previous year. The tragic day was later dubbed 'the day the music died' by Don McLean, in his song American Pie. Dear reader, following are the following videos: Weezer's hit tribute, Buddy Holly; Come On Let's Go, from Richie Valens; The Big Bopper's biggest hit, Chantilly Lace; Buddy Holly with a very rare video of his hit, Oh Boy; at the risk of being morbid, then there is the footage from the plane wreck & a TV news report of the accident; Keith Richards and the Stones' version of an unreleased Buddy Holly song, Learning The Game; And excerpt from the Paul McCartney-produced documentary The Real Buddy Holly Story, produced by McCartney; Finally, John Lennon sings a few Buddy Holly song, and this footage is pure gold.
1956 - THIS was the day of the historic rock'n'roll recording session that has become more famous than the songs they recorded, mainly because of the personnel involved, viz, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash, who held the aforementioned session at Sun Studios in Memphis. The sessions were later named the Million Dollar Quartet and released. This is part of the audio for that session, totally spontaneous. Then the cast of the recent Broadway tribute show, The Million Dollar Quartet, with a medley on the David Letterman Show.
1960 - BEFORE any indie bands, before any music act thought about it - except Dame Nellie Melba in the early 1900s - bobby soxer crooner Frank Sinatra created his own independent record label, Reprise Records. As CEO of Reprise, Sinatra recruited a host of his cronies for the fledgling label, such as fellow Rat Pack members Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. The original roster from 1961 to '63 included Bing Crosby, Jo Stafford, Rosemary Clooney, Esquivel and stand-up comedian Redd Foxx. The label still issues any Sinatra work recorded while on the label and, after his death in 1998, it had great success with his greatest hits collections. One of the label's founding principles under Sinatra's leadership was that each artist would have full creative freedom, and at some point complete ownership of their work; including publishing rights. This is the reason why recordings of early Reprise artists (Dean Martin, Jimi Hendrix, The Kinks, etc.) are (in most cases) currently distributed through other labels. In Martin's case, his Reprise recordings were out of print for nearly 20 years before a deal was struck with Capitol Records. These artists were all signed to Sinatra's label - Lee Hazlewood, the early Joni Mitchell recordings, Neil Young, The Electric Prunes, Arlo Guthrie, Norman Greenbaum, Tom Lehrer, Tiny Tim, Ry Cooder, Captain Beefheart, the early 1970s recordings by Frank Zappa and The Mothers, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, Nico's Desertshore, The Fugs, Jethro Tull, Pentangle, T.Rex, The Meters, John Cale, Gordon Lightfoot, Michael Franks, Richard Pryor, Al Jarreau and the early '70s recordings of The Beach Boys. Today, in addition to Neil Young, it is home to such artists as Green Day, Michael Bublé, Enya, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Serj Tankian, Josh Groban, Charice, Cavo, My Chemical Romance. Reprise is also the North American label for British bands Depeche Mode and Oasis. It was formerly home to the Jimi Hendrix and the Barenaked Ladies' catalogues in the U.S. Would love to have placed videos of all these acts in today's *MUSICBACKTRACK* but neither you or I have the time, so instead we'll play a bit of Hendrix - I reckon that's about the opposite end of the scale from Sinatra, with all the other acts falling somewhere in between...so...here's Frank's Jimi on the Dick Cavette Show being interviewed - then ad-libbing a song with Cavette's house band...and all the time, on Frank Sinatra's record label.
1967 - PRODUCER JOE MEEK shot dead his landlady Violet Shenton and then shot himself at his flat in London, today. Meek produced The Tornadoes hit Telstar, the first #1 hit in the USA by a British group. Meek was interested in spirituality and often attended seances, and at one such meeting, in 1958, he was warned that Buddy Holly would die on February 3. Meek tried his best to find Holly when he was in London to warn him but failed in his mission. Holly died on February 3, 1959…today. Following is a one hour docoblog on the strange life and times of Joe Meek.
TODAY'S MUSIC POST SCRIPT:
February 3, 2010 - AC/DC singer Brian Johnson, joined a growing group of critics of Bob Geldof and U2 singer Bono over their very public charity work, saying they should stop lecturing audiences about charity work and instead do their good deeds in private. Johnson said "When I was a working man I didn't want to go to a concert for some bastard to talk down to me that I should be thinking of some kid in Africa. I'm sorry mate, do it yourself, spend some of your own money and get it done. It just makes me angry."
1956 - THIS was the day of the historic rock'n'roll recording session that has become more famous than the songs they recorded, mainly because of the personnel involved, viz, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash, who held the aforementioned session at Sun Studios in Memphis. The sessions were later named the Million Dollar Quartet and released. This is part of the audio for that session, totally spontaneous. Then the cast of the recent Broadway tribute show, The Million Dollar Quartet, with a medley on the David Letterman Show.
1960 - BEFORE any indie bands, before any music act thought about it - except Dame Nellie Melba in the early 1900s - bobby soxer crooner Frank Sinatra created his own independent record label, Reprise Records. As CEO of Reprise, Sinatra recruited a host of his cronies for the fledgling label, such as fellow Rat Pack members Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr. The original roster from 1961 to '63 included Bing Crosby, Jo Stafford, Rosemary Clooney, Esquivel and stand-up comedian Redd Foxx. The label still issues any Sinatra work recorded while on the label and, after his death in 1998, it had great success with his greatest hits collections. One of the label's founding principles under Sinatra's leadership was that each artist would have full creative freedom, and at some point complete ownership of their work; including publishing rights. This is the reason why recordings of early Reprise artists (Dean Martin, Jimi Hendrix, The Kinks, etc.) are (in most cases) currently distributed through other labels. In Martin's case, his Reprise recordings were out of print for nearly 20 years before a deal was struck with Capitol Records. These artists were all signed to Sinatra's label - Lee Hazlewood, the early Joni Mitchell recordings, Neil Young, The Electric Prunes, Arlo Guthrie, Norman Greenbaum, Tom Lehrer, Tiny Tim, Ry Cooder, Captain Beefheart, the early 1970s recordings by Frank Zappa and The Mothers, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris, Nico's Desertshore, The Fugs, Jethro Tull, Pentangle, T.Rex, The Meters, John Cale, Gordon Lightfoot, Michael Franks, Richard Pryor, Al Jarreau and the early '70s recordings of The Beach Boys. Today, in addition to Neil Young, it is home to such artists as Green Day, Michael Bublé, Enya, Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Serj Tankian, Josh Groban, Charice, Cavo, My Chemical Romance. Reprise is also the North American label for British bands Depeche Mode and Oasis. It was formerly home to the Jimi Hendrix and the Barenaked Ladies' catalogues in the U.S. Would love to have placed videos of all these acts in today's *MUSICBACKTRACK* but neither you or I have the time, so instead we'll play a bit of Hendrix - I reckon that's about the opposite end of the scale from Sinatra, with all the other acts falling somewhere in between...so...here's Frank's Jimi on the Dick Cavette Show being interviewed - then ad-libbing a song with Cavette's house band...and all the time, on Frank Sinatra's record label.
1967 - PRODUCER JOE MEEK shot dead his landlady Violet Shenton and then shot himself at his flat in London, today. Meek produced The Tornadoes hit Telstar, the first #1 hit in the USA by a British group. Meek was interested in spirituality and often attended seances, and at one such meeting, in 1958, he was warned that Buddy Holly would die on February 3. Meek tried his best to find Holly when he was in London to warn him but failed in his mission. Holly died on February 3, 1959…today. Following is a one hour docoblog on the strange life and times of Joe Meek.
TODAY'S MUSIC POST SCRIPT:
February 3, 2010 - AC/DC singer Brian Johnson, joined a growing group of critics of Bob Geldof and U2 singer Bono over their very public charity work, saying they should stop lecturing audiences about charity work and instead do their good deeds in private. Johnson said "When I was a working man I didn't want to go to a concert for some bastard to talk down to me that I should be thinking of some kid in Africa. I'm sorry mate, do it yourself, spend some of your own money and get it done. It just makes me angry."
