Happy Birthday to Iain Sutherland of Sutherland Brothers And Quiver who was born in Ellon, Aberdeenshire in 1948. He wrote and sang on this 70s classic ..
Ok, a nostalgic trip for me now as today is one of my favourite artists from my late teens/early twenties birthday. Pub Rock and New Wave Singer/Songwriter Graham Parker is 67 today having been born in London on this day in 1950...
Happy 55th Birthday to Kirk Hammett Lead Guitarist for Metallica who was born in San Francisco on this day in 1962...
And Happy Birthday to an 80s sex symbol, Marty Wilde's daughter Kim is 57 having been born on this day in Chiswick in 1960...
Rock n Roll Singer/Songwriter Hank Ballard was born John Henry Kendricks in Detroit on this day in 1927. He wrote and recorded this (best) version of this classic song a couple of years before Chubby Checker made it popular...
The man who wrote the words for some of the 20th Century's most iconic songs, Johnny Mercer was born on this day in Savannah, Georgia on this day in 1909. He wrote, among many, Lazy Bones, Jeepers Creepers, You Must've Been A Beautiful Baby, That Old Black Magic, One For My Baby (And One More For The Road) and this song that has been recorded by almost eveyrone! (this is my favourite version)...
There is a fantastic book called "Escaping the Delta" by Elijah Wald which looks at the origins of the delta blues and provides some pretty conclusive evidence to support the case that it was singer like Bessie Smith who influenced country blues singers and not the other way around. His argument makes fascinating reading as he takes the notion of blues being a "folk" music and reinterprets it as being at the cutting edge of black popular culture by looking at how the music evolved to reflect changing audience tastes. The whole mystique about the blues is assessed as being something "invented" by the white audiences of the 1960s who re-discovered the music. The book turned my head at how listened to the blues and indeed what I considered to be authentic. Nice to hear a very young Louis Armstrong playing a cornet on this record too. Unless you are in to jazz, Armstrong will always been seen as a popular music figure from the late 50's and 60's with hits like "Hello, Dolly" which really had little to do with jazz. The music he was producing on 1925 really transformed music and there is a rhythmic fluidity in his playing on this record which is in contrast to his fellow musicians. His playing in the 1920's was incredible. I believe that St Louis Blues is the most recorded tune of all time with records pre-dating this one. This week I heard the latest trumpet sensation from New Orleans perform in Southampton.....
The "Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", Trombonist, Composer, Conductor and Bandleader of the Big Band era, Tommy Dorsey was born in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania on this day in 1905.