Blog
Otis Ray Redding Jr. (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was an American singer and songwriter. He is regarded as one of the greatest singer-songwriters in the history of American popular music and a seminal artist in soul music and rhythm and blues. Nicknamed the “King of Soul“, Redding’s style of singing gained inspiration from the gospel music that preceded the genre. His singing style influenced many other soul artists of the 1960s.
Redding was born in Dawson, Georgia, and his family soon moved to Macon. Redding quit school at age 15 to support his family, working with Little Richard‘s backing band, the Upsetters, and performing in talent shows at Macon’s historic Douglass Theatre. In 1958, he joined Johnny Jenkins‘s band, the Pinetoppers, with whom he toured the Southern states as a singer and driver. An unscheduled appearance on a Staxrecording session led to a contract and his first hit single, “These Arms of Mine“, in 1962.
Stax released Redding’s debut album, Pain in My Heart, two years later. Initially popular mainly with African-Americans, Redding later reached a wider American pop music audience. Along with his group, he first played small shows in the American South. Redding later performed at the popular Los Angeles night club Whisky a Go Go and toured Europe, performing in London, Paris and other major cities. In 1967, he performed at the Monterey Pop Festival.
Shortly before his death in a plane crash, Redding wrote and recorded his iconic “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” with Steve Cropper. The song became the first posthumous number-one record on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts. The album The Dock of the Bay was the first posthumous album to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart. Redding’s premature death devastated Stax. Already on the verge of bankruptcy, the label soon discovered that the Atco division of Atlantic Records owned the rights to his entire song catalog.
Redding received many posthumous accolades, including two Grammy Awards, the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame, and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In addition to “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay”, some of his best-known songs include “Respect” and “Try a Little Tenderness“.
more...Elvin Ray Jones (September 9, 1927 – May 18, 2004 Pontiac, MI) was an American jazz drummer of the post-bop era. Most famously a member of John Coltrane‘s quartet, with whom he recorded from late 1960 to late 1965, Jones appeared on such albums as My Favorite Things, A Love Supreme, Ascension and Live at Birdland. After 1966, Jones led his own trio, and later larger groups under the name The Elvin Jones Jazz Machine. His brothers Hank and Thad were also celebrated jazz musicians with whom he occasionally recorded. Elvin was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1995. In his The History of Jazz, jazz historian and critic Ted Gioia calls Jones “one of the most influential drummers in the history of jazz”. He was also ranked at Number 23 on Rolling Stone magazine’s “100 Greatest Drummers of All Time”.
more...The most distant object easily visible to the unaided eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy. Even at some two and a half million light-years distant, this immense spiral galaxy — spanning over 200,000 light years — is visible, although as a faint, nebulous cloud in the constellation Andromeda. A bright yellow nucleus, dark winding dust lanes, and expansive spiral arms dotted with blue star clusters and red nebulae, are recorded in this stunning telescopic image which combines data from orbiting Hubble with ground-based images from Subaru and Mayall. In only about 5 billion years, the Andromeda galaxy may be even easier to see — as it will likely span the entire night sky — just before it merges with, or passes right by, our Milky Way Galaxy.
more...Ronald Charles McKernan (September 8, 1945 – March 8, 1973), known as Pigpen, was an American musician. He was a founding member of the San Francisco band the Grateful Dead and played in the group from 1965 to 1972.
McKernan grew up heavily influenced by African-American music, particularly the blues, and enjoyed listening to his father’s collection of records and taught himself how to play harmonica and piano. He began socializing around the San Francisco Bay Area, becoming friends with Jerry Garcia. After the pair had played in various folk and jug bands, McKernan suggested they form an electric group, which became the Grateful Dead. He was the band’s original frontman and played harmonica and electric organ, but Garcia and bassist Phil Lesh‘s influences on the band became increasingly stronger as they embraced psychedelic rock. McKernan struggled to keep up with the changing music, causing the group to hire keyboardist Tom Constanten, with McKernan’s contributions essentially limited to vocals, harmonica, and percussion from November 1968 to January 1970. He continued to be a frontman in concert for some numbers, including his interpretations of Bobby Bland‘s “Turn On Your Love Light” and the Rascals‘ “Good Lovin’“.
Unlike the other members of the Grateful Dead, McKernan avoided psychedelic drugs, preferring to drink alcohol (namely whiskey and flavored fortified wine). By 1971, his health had been affected by alcoholism and liver damage and doctors advised him to stop touring. Following a hiatus, he resumed touring with the group in December 1971 but was forced to retire from touring altogether in June 1972. McKernan was found dead of a gastrointestinal hemorrhage on March 8, 1973, aged 27, and is buried at Alta Mesa Memorial Park in Palo Alto.
more...David William Kearney (September 8, 1934 – April 20, 2022), known as Guitar Shorty, was an American blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He was known for his explosive guitar style and wild stage antics. Credited with influencing both Jimi Hendrixand Buddy Guy, Guitar Shorty recorded and toured from the 1950s until the 2020s. In 2017, Billboard magazine said, “his galvanizing guitar work defines modern, top-of-the-line blues-rock. His vocals remain as forceful as ever. Righteous shuffles…blistering, sinuous guitar solos.” Shorty was born in either Houston, Texas, or Loughman, Florida. He grew up mainly in Kissimmee, Florida. He was taught by his uncle to play the guitar at an early age, and began leading a band not long after. During his time in Tampa Bay, Florida, at age 16 he received his nickname, Guitar Shorty, when it mysteriously showed up on the marquee of the club he was playing as ‘The Walter Johnson Band featuring Guitar Shorty.’ He steadily began to garner accolades from his peers and, soon after, he joined the Ray Charles Band for a year. He recorded his first single in 1957, “You Don’t Treat Me Right”, for the Cobra label under the direction of Willie Dixon, after Dixon saw him playing with the Walter Johnson Orchestra.
While in New Orleans, Shorty also fronted his own band which played regularly at the Dew Drop Inn where he was joined by special guests such as T-Bone Walker, Big Joe Turner and Little Richard. Not one to stay in one place long, Shorty next moved to the West Coast at 19 to play with Sam Cooke. He played up and down the west coast and Canada until he met his future wife, Marsha or Marcia, in Seattle, Washington.Marsha was the step-sister of Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was so enthralled with Shorty’s playing, he went AWOL several times from his Army base to see him perform. Shorty introduced Hendrix to the wah pedal and loaned him one when Hendrix could not afford to buy his own. Shorty married Marsha in 1962 and they separated in 1970.
more...Charles “Specs” Wright (September 8, 1927 – February 6, 1963) was an American jazz drummer born in Philadelphia.
Wright played drums in an Army band until his discharge in 1947. Following this he played in a group with Jimmy Heath and Howard McGhee. In 1949 he joined Dizzy Gillespie‘s band alongside John Coltrane, remaining until it disbanded in mid-1950. Later in 1950 he was a member of Gillespie’s sextet with Coltrane, Jimmy Heath, Percy Heath, and Milt Jackson. In the 1950s, Wright played with Earl Bostic, Kenny Drew, Cannonball Adderley, Art Blakey, and Carmen McRae, and gigged locally in Philadelphia. He was with Hank Mobley in 1958 with his septet alongside Billy Root, Curtis Fuller, Ray Bryant, Tommy Bryant, and Lee Morgan. Following this Wright played with Sonny Rollins, Betty Carter, Red Garland, Coleman Hawkins, and Lambert, Hendricks and Ross. He died in 1963. He was interred in Beverly National Cemetery in Beverly, New Jersey.
more...Wilbur Bernard Ware (September 8, 1923 – September 9, 1979) was an American jazzdouble bassist. He was a regular bassist for the Riverside record label in the 1950s, and recorded regularly in that decade with Johnny Griffin, Kenny Dorham, Kenny Drew, and Thelonious Monk. He also appeared on records released by J.R. Monterose, Toots Thielemans, Sonny Clark, Tina Brooks, Zoot Sims, and Grant Green, among others.
Ware grew up in Chicago where he taught himself to play drums, banjo, bass while playing at church. In the 1940s, he worked with Stuff Smith, Sonny Stitt, and Roy Eldridge. He recorded with Sun Ra in the early 1950s. Later in the 1950s, settling in New York City, Ware played with Eddie Vinson, Art Blakey, and Buddy DeFranco. His only album recorded as a leader and released during his lifetime was The Chicago Sound, from 1957 when he worked for Riverside. He made jazz instructional albums for Music Minus One. In 1958, Ware was one of 57 jazz musicians to appear in the photograph A Great Day in Harlem. Ware’s addiction to narcotics resulted in his return to Chicago in 1963, and then to a period of incarceration. He was inactive musically for about six years. In 1969, Ware played with Clifford Jordan, Elvin Jones and Sonny Rollins.[2] He died from emphysema in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1979
more...Saturday 9-7-24 from 4-7pm Performing at the 4 Mile Restaurant & Bar in Eau Claire, WI https://4milerestaurant.com/ Featuring Ras John, Cutter, Bounmi, Rich, Kurt and mick Bamboula.
more...The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in a new image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the centre of a sunflower. So the nickname for this cosmic object — the Sunflower Galaxy — is no coincidence. Discovered by Pierre Mechain in 1779, the galaxy later made it as the 63rd entry into fellow French astronomer Charles Messier’s famous catalogue, published in 1781. The two astronomers spotted the Sunflower Galaxy’s glow in the small, northern constellation Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs). We now know this galaxy is about 27 million light-years away and belongs to the M51 Group — a group of galaxies, named after its brightest member, Messier 51, another spiral-shaped galaxy dubbed the Whirlpool Galaxy. Galactic arms, sunflowers and whirlpools are only a few examples of nature’s apparent preference for spirals. For galaxies like Messier 63 the winding arms shine bright because of the presence of recently formed, blue–white giant stars, readily seen in this Hubble image. 27mly.
more...Mark Ware Isham (born September 7, 1951) is an American musician and composer. A trumpeter and keyboardist, Isham works in a variety of genres, including jazz and electronic. He is also a prolific and acclaimed composer of film scores, and has scored over 200 film and television productions since his debut in 1983.
Isham is a nine-time Grammy Award nominee, winning Best New Age Album for his 1990 self-titled album. He was nominated for an Academy Award for A River Runs Through It (1992), and a Golden Globe Award for Nell (1994). He has also been nominated for six Primetime Emmy Awards, winning Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music for EZ Streets.
more...Christine Ellen Hynde (born September 7, 1951 Akron, OH) is an American-British musician. She is a founding member and the lead vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter of the rock band The Pretenders, and one of the band’s two remaining original members alongside drummer Martin Chambers. She is the only continuous member of the band, appearing on every studio album.
Hynde formed the Pretenders in Hereford, England in 1978, with Pete Farndon, James Honeyman-Scott and Chambers. She has also recorded a number of songs with other musicians including Frank Sinatra, Cher and UB40. She recorded her first solo album, Stockholm, in 2014. Hynde was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005 as a member of the Pretenders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzCPYWyd9v4
more...Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959 Lubbock, TX), known as Buddy Holly, was an American singer, songwriter and musician who was a central and pioneering figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. He was born to a musical family in Lubbock, Texas, during the Great Depression, and learned to play guitar and sing alongside his siblings. Holly’s style was country and western music which he performed in Lubbock with his friends from high school.
Holly made his first appearance on local television in 1952, and the following year he formed the group Buddy and Bob with his friend Bob Montgomery. In 1955, after opening for Elvis Presley as part of the Louisiana Hayride’s habit of seeking out local bands to add to the show, Holly decided to pursue a career in music. Subsequently, he played with Presley three times that year and his band’s style shifted from country and western to entirely rock and roll. In October that year, when Holly opened for Bill Haley & His Comets, he was spotted by Nashville scout Eddie Crandall, who helped him get a contract with Decca Records.
Holly’s recording sessions at Decca were produced by Owen Bradley, who had become famous for producing orchestrated country hits for stars like Patsy Cline. Unhappy with Bradley’s musical style and control in the studio, Holly went to producer Norman Petty in Clovis, New Mexico, and recorded a demo of “That’ll Be the Day“, among other songs. Petty became the band’s manager and sent the demo to Brunswick Records, which released it as a single credited to The Crickets, a name chosen by the band to subvert Decca’s contract limitations. It became the name of Holly’s band. In September 1957, as the band toured, “That’ll Be the Day” topped the US and UK singles charts. Its success was followed in October by another major hit, “Peggy Sue“.
The album The “Chirping” Crickets, released in November 1957, reached number five on the UK Albums Chart. Holly made his second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Showin January 1958 and soon after toured Australia and then the UK. In early 1959, he assembled a new band, consisting of future country music star Waylon Jennings (bass), famed session musician Tommy Allsup (guitar), and Carl Bunch (drums), and embarked on a tour of the mid-western US. After a show in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly chartered an airplane to travel to his next show in Moorhead, Minnesota. Soon after takeoff, the plane crashed, killing Holly, Ritchie Valens, The Big Bopper, and pilot Roger Peterson in a tragedy later referred to by Don McLean as “The Day the Music Died” in his song “American Pie“.
During his short career, Holly wrote and recorded many songs. He is often regarded as the artist who defined the traditional rock-and-roll lineup of two guitars, bass, and drums. This was unfounded considering he first saw Elvis with this line-up in Lubbock in 1955 when Holly was strictly a country music band. Holly was a major influence on later popular music artists, including Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Brian May, Cliff Richard, the Hollies, Elvis Costello, Jeff Beck, Dave Edmunds, Fiona Apple, Lou Reed, Marshall Crenshaw, Freddie Mercury and Elton John. Holly was among the first artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 1986. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 13 in its list of 100 Greatest Artists in 2010.
more...
James Milton Campbell Jr. (September 7, 1934 – August 4, 2005 Inverness, MS), better known as Little Milton, was an American blues singer and guitarist, best known for his number-one R&B single “We’re Gonna Make It“. His other hits include “Baby, I Love You“, “Who’s Cheating Who?”, and “Grits Ain’t Groceries (All Around The World)“.
A native of the Mississippi Delta, Milton began his recording career in 1953 at Sun Records before relocating to St. Louis and co-founding Bobbin Records in 1958. It wasn’t until Milton signed to Checker Records that he achieved success on the charts. Other labels Milton recorded for include Meteor, Stax, Glades, Golden Ear, MCA, and Malaco. Milton was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1988.
more...Walter Theodore “Sonny” Rollins (born September 7, 1930) is an American retired jazz tenor saxophonist who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential jazz musicians. In a seven-decade career, he has recorded over sixty albums as a leader. A number of his compositions, including “St. Thomas“, “Oleo“, “Doxy“, and “Airegin“, have become jazz standards. Rollins has been called “the greatest living improviser”. Due to health problems, Rollins has not performed publicly since 2012 and announced his retirement in 2014.
Rollins was born in New York City to parents from the Virgin Islands. The youngest of three siblings, he grew up in central Harlem and on Sugar Hill, receiving his first alto saxophone at the age of seven or eight. He attended Edward W. Stitt Junior High School and graduated from Benjamin Franklin High School in East Harlem. Rollins started as a pianist, then switched to alto saxophone after being inspired by Louis Jordan and finally switched to tenor saxophone in 1946, influenced by his idol Coleman Hawkins. During his high school years, he played in a band with other future jazz legends Jackie McLean, Kenny Drew, and Art Taylor.
more...More Posts
- Willie Jones III Day
- Derek Trucks Day
- Bill Watrous Day
- World Music with Mwana Idi Shaban
- Daily Roots with Jah Scotchie
- The Cosmos with LDN 1733
- Tina Brooks Day
- World Music with Rafael Riqueni
- Tal Farlow Day
- Daily Roots with Dennis Alcapone
- Dr John Live
- Dr John Dies at 77
- The Cosmos with M63
- Steve Vai Day
- Monty Alexander Day
- Grant Green Day
- World Music with Shono
- Daily Roots with Prince Francis
- Diego’s Memorial Site
- Tears of Sorrow and Healing for Diego