51....John Petrucci, American guitarist and songwriter for Progressive Metal band, Dream Theater was born in Long Island, New York in 1967...
Oscar Hammerstein II, American lyricist who worked with Richard Rodgers, born in NYC, New York in 1895 (d. 1960)... This is what England said to the WC last night..
Ooops missed a few birthdays, some personal favourites of mine too. Friday 13th was...76..Roger [Jim] McGuinn, American singer, songwriter and guitarist (the Byrds), born in Chicago, Illinois in 1942. Here is what Wiki says about his innovative and influential guitar styles... During his time with The Byrds, McGuinn developed two innovative and very influential styles of electric guitar playing. The first was "jingle-jangle" – generating ringing arpeggios based on banjo finger picking styles he learned while at the Old Town School of Folk – which was influential in the folk rock genre. The second style was a merging of saxophonist John Coltrane's free-jazz atonalities, which hinted at the droning of the sitar – a style of playing, first heard on The Byrds' 1966 single "Eight Miles High", which was influential in psychedelic rock. please log in to view this image McGuinn with The Byrds at a concert held at Washington University in St. Louis (September 1972) While "tracking" The Byrds' first single, "Mr. Tambourine Man", at Columbia studios, McGuinn discovered an important component of his style. "The 'Ric' [Rickenbacker guitar] by itself is kind of thuddy," he notes. "It doesn't ring. But if you add a compressor, you get that long sustain. To be honest, I found this by accident. The engineer, Ray Gerhardt, would run compressors on everything to protect his precious equipment from loud rock and roll. He compressed the heck out of my 12-string, and it sounded so great we decided to use two tubecompressors [likely Teletronix LA-2As] in series, and then go directly into the board. That's how I got my 'jingle-jangle' tone. It's really squashed down, but it jumps out from the radio. With compression, I found I could hold a note for three or four seconds, and sound more like a wind instrument. Later, this led me to emulate John Coltrane's saxophone on "Eight Miles High". Without compression, I couldn't have sustained the riff's first note."[4] "I practiced eight hours a day on that 'Ric,'" he continues, "I really worked it. In those days, acoustic 12s had wide necks and thick strings that were spaced pretty far apart, so they were hard to play. But the Rick's slim neck and low action let me explore jazz and blues scales up and down the fretboard, and incorporate more hammer-ons and pull-offs into my solos. I also translated some of my banjo picking techniques to the 12-string. By combining a flat pick with metal finger picks on my middle and ring fingers, I discovered I could instantly switch from fast single-note runs to banjo rolls and get the best of both worlds."[5] Another sound that McGuinn developed is made by playing a seven string guitar, featuring a doubled G-string (with the second string tuned an octave higher). The C. F. Martin guitar company has even released a special edition called the HD7 Roger McGuinn Signature Edition, that claims to capture McGuinn's "jingle-jangle" tone which he created with 12 string guitars, while maintaining the ease of playing a 6-string guitar.
Ok on to yesterday's birthdays... I honoured this great man last year on here, so just the one song today, but it is safe to say that there would've been no Dylan, 60s protest Folk movement, Joe Strummer or Billy Bragg as we know them without his influence... Woody Guthrie was born in Okemah, Oklahoma in 1912, (d.1967). He wrote thousands of songs, many that remain unrecorded as lyric sheets in the Guthrie Archives..
52...Tayna Donelly (singer/guitarist and songwriter for Belly) is born in Newport, Rhode Island in 1966. She met future stepsister Kristin Hersh in elementary school and by high school the teens formed Throwing Muses...
And now today's... As Woolstonian has already posted... Ian Curtis, English Post Punk vocalist and songwriter(Joy Division-Transmission) was born in Stretford, Lancashire in 1956 (d. 1980)
Johnny Thunders (of New York Dolls, The Heartbreakers) is born John Anthony Genzale Jr. in Queens, New York in 1952, (d. 1991)...
72...Linda Ronstadt was born in Tucson, Arizona in 1946. She broke into her music career as lead singer of the folk-trio the Stone Poneys... Here's to the continued glorious Summer...
Reggae pioneer,Desmond Dekker (leader of The Aces) was born in Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica in 1941, (d. 2006)..
66...Stewart Copeland was born in Alexandria, Virginia in 1952. He spent his youth in Lebanon and then England. After moving back to the States to attend college, he returned to the UK to play drums for Curved Air and then The Police... He was a very energetic drummer who was a little wasted when The Police started playing White Reggae. Here he is at his best playing live a song that he co-wrote with Sting that is more Punk orientated from their first album Outlandos d'Amour...
