mick laBriola

The small, northern constellation Triangulum harbors this magnificent face-on spiral galaxy, M33. Its popular names include the Pinwheel Galaxy or just the Triangulum Galaxy. M33 is over 50,000 light-years in diameter, third largest in the Local Group of galaxies after the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and our own Milky Way. About 3 million light-years from the Milky Way, M33 is itself thought to be a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy and astronomers in these two galaxies would likely have spectacular views of each other’s grand spiral star systems. As for the view from planet Earth, this sharp image shows off M33’s blue star clusters and pinkish star forming regions along the galaxy’s loosely wound spiral arms. In fact, the cavernous NGC 604 is the brightest star forming region, seen here at about the 7 o’clock position from the galaxy center. Like M31, M33’s population of well-measured variable stars have helped make this nearby spiral a cosmic yardstick for establishing the distance scale of the Universe.

Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer-songwriter, record producer, actor, activist, and humanitarian, whose greatest commercial success was as a solo singer. After traveling and living in numerous locations while growing up in his military family, Denver began his music career with folk music groups during the late 1960s. Starting in the 1970s, he was one of the most popular acoustic artists of the decade and one of its best-selling artists. By 1974, he was one of America’s best-selling performers, and AllMusic has described Denver as “among the most beloved entertainers of his era”.

Denver recorded and released approximately 300 songs, about 200 of which he composed, with total sales of over 33 million records worldwide. He recorded and performed primarily with an acoustic guitar and sang about his joy in nature, his disdain for city life, his enthusiasm for music, and his relationship trials. Denver’s music appeared on a variety of charts, including country music, the Billboard Hot 100, and adult contemporary, in all earning 12 gold and four platinum albums with his signature songs “Take Me Home, Country Roads“, “Annie’s Song“, “Rocky Mountain High“, “Calypso“, “Thank God I’m a Country Boy“, and “Sunshine on My Shoulders“.

Denver appeared in several films and television specials during the 1970s and 1980s. He continued to record in the 1990s, also focusing on environmental issues by lending vocal support to space exploration and testifying in front of Congress in protest against censorship in music. He lived in Aspen for much of his life where he was known for his love of Colorado. In 1974, Denver was named poet laureate of the state. The Colorado state legislature also adopted “Rocky Mountain High” as one of its two state songs in 2007. An avid pilot, Denver died at the age of 53 in a single-fatality crash while piloting his recently purchased light plane. Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. was born on New Year’s Eve 1943, in Roswell, New Mexico, to Captain (later LTC) Henry John “Dutch” Deutschendorf Sr. (April 15, 1920 – March 15, 1982).

John Kirby (December 31, 1908 – June 14, 1952), was a jazz double-bassist who also played trombone and tuba. In addition to sideman work (prominently with Benny Goodman), Kirby is remembered for leading a successful chamber jazz sextet in the late 1930s and early 1940s, which scored several hit songs including “Loch Lomond” and the debut recording of “Undecided“, a jazz standard.

John Kirby was born John Kirk in Winchester, Virginia on 31 December 1908. His mother, Dolly Kirk (died October 1925) gave him up for adoption and he was raised at 442 North Kent Street by Reverend Washington Johnson and his wife, Nancy. Kirby was a student at the Winchester Colored School (renamed Douglass School in 1916) and started trombone lessons around 1917 under the guidance of Professor Powell Gibson (principal, math, drama and music teacher). Kirby (after success in New York), stated that Bach‘s work fascinated him as a kid and that he learned to play music just as it was written.

Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and a civil and human rights activist, often referred to as “The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement”. Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals. An important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950s and 1960s, she influenced many of the key figures of the folk-revival of that time, including Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Mavis Staples, and Janis Joplin. Time magazine included her recording of “Take This Hammer” on its list of the 100 Greatest Popular Songs, stating that “Rosa Parks was her No. 1 fan, and Martin Luther King Jr. called her the queen of American folk music.”

Odetta was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on December 31, 1930. Growing up during the Great Depression, she moved from the Deep South to live with her stepfather Zadock Felious. She grew up in Los Angeles, where she attended Belmont High School. She then studied music at Los Angeles City College while employed as a domestic worker. She had operatic training from the age of 13. Her mother hoped she would follow Marian Anderson, but Odetta doubted a large black girl would ever perform at the Metropolitan Opera. Her first professional experience was in musical theater in 1944, as an ensemble member for four years with the Hollywood Turnabout Puppet Theatre, working alongside Elsa Lanchester. In 1949, she joined the national touring company of the musical Finian’s Rainbow.

Jonah Jones (born Robert Elliott Jones; December 31, 1909 – April 29, 2000) was a jazz trumpeter who created concise versions of jazz and swingand jazz standards that appealed to a mass audience. In the jazz community, he is known for his work with Stuff Smith. He was sometimes referred to as “King Louis II,” a reference to Louis Armstrong. Jones started playing alto saxophone at the age of 12 in the Booker T. Washington Community Center band in Louisville, Kentucky, before quickly transitioning to trumpet, where he excelled.

Jones was born in Louisville, Kentucky. Jones began his career playing on a river boat named Island Queen, which traveled between Kentucky and Ohio. He began in the 1920s playing on Mississippi riverboats and then in 1928 he joined with Horace Henderson. Later he worked with Jimmie Lunceford and had an early collaboration with Stuff Smith in 1932. From 1932 to 1936 he had a successful collaboration with Smith, but in the 1940s he worked in big bands like Benny Carter‘s and Fletcher Henderson‘s. He would spend most of a decade with Cab Calloway‘s band which later became a combo.

The beautiful Trifid Nebula, also known as Messier 20, is easy to find with a small telescope in the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. About 5,000 light-years away, the colorful study in cosmic contrastsshares this well-composed, nearly 1 degree wide field with open star cluster Messier 21 (top left). Trisected by dust lanes the Trifid itself is about 40 light-years across and a mere 300,000 years old. That makes it one of theyoungest star forming regions in our sky, with newborn and embryonic stars embedded in its natal dust and gas clouds. Estimates of the distance to open star cluster M21 are similar to M20’s, but though they share this gorgeous telescopic skyscape there is no apparent connection between the two. In fact, M21’s stars are much older, about 8 million years old.

Del Shannon (born Charles Weedon Westover; December 30, 1934 – February 8, 1990) was an American rock and roll and country musician and singer-songwriter, best known for his 1961 number 1 Billboard hit “Runaway“. Westover was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan to Bert and Leone Mosher Westover, and grew up in nearby Coopersville. He learned to play the ukulele and guitar and listened to country-and-western music, by artists such as Hank Williams, Hank Snow, and Lefty Frizzell. He was drafted into the Army in 1954, and while in Germany played guitar in a band called “The Cool Flames”. When his service ended, he returned to Battle Creek, Michigan, and worked as a carpet salesman and as a truck driver for a furniture factory. He found part-time work as a rhythm guitarist in the singer Doug DeMott’s group, “The Moonlight Ramblers”, working at the Hi-Lo Club.

When DeMott was fired in 1958 for drunkenness, Westover took over as leader and singer, giving himself the name Charlie Johnson and renaming the band the Big Little Show Band. In early 1959 he added the keyboardist Max Crook, who played the Musitron (his own invention, an early synthesizer). Crook had made recordings, and he persuaded Ann Arbor disc jockey Ollie McLaughlin to listen to the band. McLaughlin took the group’s demos to Harry Balk and Irving Micahnik of Talent Artists in Detroit. In July 1960, Westover and Crook signed to become recording artists and composers for Bigtop Records. Balk suggested Westover use a new name, and they came up with “Del Shannon”, combining Mark Shannon—a wrestling pseudonym used by a regular at the Hi-Lo Club—with Del, derived from the Cadillac Coupe de Ville, his favorite car.

He flew to New York City, but his first sessions were not successful. McLaughlin then persuaded Shannon and Crook to rewrite and re-record one of their earlier songs, originally called “Little Runaway”, using the Musitron as lead instrument. On January 21, 1961, they recorded “Runaway”, which was released as a single in February 1961, reaching number 1 on the Billboard chart in April. Shannon followed with “Hats Off to Larry“, which peaked at number 5 on the Billboard chart and number 2 on the Cashbox chart in 1961, and the less popular “So Long, Baby”, another song of breakup bitterness. “Runaway” and “Hats Off to Larry” were recorded in a day. “Little Town Flirt“, in 1962 (with Bob Babbitt), reached number 12 in 1963, as did the album of the same title. After these hits, Shannon was unable to keep his momentum in the U.S. but had continued success in the United Kingdom, where he had always been more popular. In 1963, he became the first American to record a cover version of a song by the Beatles: his version of “From Me to You” charted in the U.S. before the Beatles’ version.

John Cowan Hartford (December 30, 1937 – June 4, 2001) was an American folk, country, and bluegrass composer and musician known for his mastery of the fiddle and banjo, as well as for his witty lyrics, unique vocal style, and extensive knowledge of Mississippi River lore. His most successful song is “Gentle on My Mind“, which won three Grammy Awards and was listed in “BMI’s Top 100 Songs of the Century”. Hartford performed with a variety of ensembles throughout his career, and is perhaps best known for his solo performances where he would interchange the guitar, banjo, and fiddle from song to song. He also invented his own shuffle tap dance move, and clogged on an amplified piece of plywood while he played and sang.

Harford (changed his name to Hartford later in life at the behest of Chet Atkins) was born on December 30, 1937, in New York City to parents Carl and Mary Harford. He spent his childhood in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was exposed to the influence that shaped much of his career and music: the Mississippi River. From the time he got his first job on the river, at age 16, Hartford was on, around, or singing about the river.

Hartford recorded four more albums for RCA from 1968 to 1970: The Love Album, Housing Project, John Hartford, and Iron Mountain Depot. In 1971, he moved to Warner Bros. Records where he was given more freedom to record in his untraditional style, fronting a band that included Vassar Clements, Tut Taylor, and Norman Blake. He recorded several albums that set the tone of his later career, including Aereo-Plain and Morning Bugle. Sam Bush said, “Without Aereo-Plain (and the Aereo-Plain band), there would be no newgrass music.”

He switched to the Flying Fish label several years later and continued to experiment with non-traditional country and bluegrass styles. Among his recordings were two albums in 1977 and 1980 with Doug and Rodney Dillard from The Dillards, with Sam Bush as a backing musician and featuring a diversity of songs that included “Boogie On Reggae Woman” and “Yakety Yak“. Hartford’s Grammy-winning Mark Twang features Hartford playing solo, reminiscent of his live solo performances playing the fiddle, guitar, banjo, and amplified plywood for tapping his feet. At the same time, he developed a stage show which toured in various forms from the mid-1970s until shortly before his death.

Hartford changed recording labels several more times during his career; in 1991, he inaugurated his own Small Dog a’Barkin’ label. Later in the 1990s, he switched again to Rounder Records. He recorded a number of idiosyncratic records on Rounder, many of which recalled earlier forms of folk and country music. Among them was the 1999 album Retrograss recorded with Mike Seegerand David Grisman, with bluegrass versions of “(Sittin’ on) the Dock of the Bay“, “Maybellene“, “When I’m Sixty-Four“, and “Maggie’s Farm“.

Ellas McDaniel (born Ellas Otha Bates, December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008), known as Bo Diddley, was an American singer, guitarist, songwriter and music producer who played a key role in the transition from the blues to rock and roll. He influenced many artists, including Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the Clash.

His use of African rhythms and a signature beat, a simple five-accent hambone rhythm, is a cornerstone of hip hop, rock, and pop music.^[3][5][6] In recognition of his achievements, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, the Blues Hall of Fame in 2003, and the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2017. He has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Diddley is also recognized for his technical innovations, including his distinctive rectangular guitar, with its unique booming, resonant, shimmering tones. Born in McComb, Mississippi, as Ellas Otha Bates, he was adopted and raised by his mother’s cousin, Gussie McDaniel, whose surname he assumed. In 1934, the McDaniel family moved to the South Side of Chicago, where he dropped the Otha and became Ellas McDaniel. He was an active member of Chicago’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where he studied the trombone and the violin, becoming so proficient on the violin that the musical director invited him to join the orchestra. He performed until he was 18. However, he was more interested in the pulsating, rhythmic music he heard at a local Pentecostal church and took up the guitar.

Inspired by a performance by John Lee Hooker, he supplemented his income as a carpenter and mechanic by playing on street cornerswith friends, including Jerome Green (c. 1934–1973), in the Hipsters band, later renamed the Langley Avenue Jive Cats. Green became a near-constant member of McDaniel’s backing band, the two often trading joking insults with each other during live shows.During the summers of 1943 and 1944, he played at the Maxwell Street market in a band with Earl Hooker. By 1951 he was playing on the street with backing from Roosevelt Jackson on washtub bass and Jody Williams, whom he had taught to play the guitar. Williams later played lead guitar on “Who Do You Love?” (1956).

In 1951, he landed a regular spot at the 708 Club, on Chicago’s South Side, with a repertoire influenced by Louis Jordan, John Lee Hooker, and Muddy Waters. In late 1954, he teamed up with the harmonica player Billy Boy Arnold, the drummer Clifton James and the bass player Roosevelt Jackson and recorded demos of “I’m a Man” and “Bo Diddley“. They re-recorded the songs at Chess Studios, with a backing ensemble comprising Otis Spann (piano), Lester Davenport (harmonica), Frank Kirkland (drums), and Jerome Green (maracas). The record was released in March 1955, and the A-side, “Bo Diddley”, became a number one R&B hit.

James Henry Jones (December 30, 1918, Memphis, Tennessee – April 29, 1982, Burbank, California) was an American jazz pianist and arranger.

As a child, Jones learned guitar and piano. He worked in various orchestras in Chicago from 1936 and played in a trio with Stuff Smith from 1943 to 1945. Following this, he played with Don Byas, Dizzy Gillespie (1945), J.C. Heard (1945–47), Buck Clayton (1946) and Etta Jones. He accompanied Sarah Vaughan from 1947 to 1952 and then again from 1954 to 1957 after a long illness. In 1954, he played on an album with Clifford Brown and accompanied him on his European tour. Around this time, he also played with Helen Merrill and Gil Evans. In 1959, he accompanied Anita O’Day in her appearance at the Newport Jazz Festival and also worked with Dakota Staton, Pat Suzuki, and Morgana King.

As a pianist and arranger in New York, he worked in the 1960s with Harry Belafonte, Johnny Hodges, Budd Johnson, Nat Gonella, and Clark Terry. He accompanied Chris Connor on “Where Flamingoes Fly” and sat in with the Duke Ellington Orchestra for some collaborations with Ella Fitzgerald. Jones did a fine set with his trio (Jimmy Hughart and Grady Tate) at the Antibes Jazz Festival in 1966, and he went on tour with Jazz at the Philharmonic the following year. In the 1970s, he worked with Kenny Burrell and Cannonball Adderley.

In the course of his career, Jones played piano on recordings by Harry Sweets Edison, Ben Webster, Big Joe Turner, Coleman Hawkins, Frank Wess, Milt Jackson, Sidney Bechet, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, and Thad Jones and worked as an arranger for Wes Montgomery, Nancy Wilson, Shirley Horn, Joe Williams, Billy Taylor, and Chris Connor.

The Eagle Nebula (catalogued as Messier 16 or M16, and as NGC 6611, and also known as the Star Queen Nebula and The Spire) is a young open cluster of stars in the constellation Serpens, discovered by Jean-Philippe de Chéseaux in 1745–46. Both the “Eagle” and the “Star Queen” refer to visual impressions of the dark silhouette near the center of the nebula, an area made famous as the “Pillars of Creation” imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. The nebula contains several active star-forming gas and dust regions, including the aforementioned Pillars of Creation. 7,000 ly distance.

Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (born 29 December 1946) is an English singer, songwriter, and actress. She achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her hit single “As Tears Go By” and became one of the lead female artists during the British Invasion in the United States.

Born in Hampstead, London, Faithfull began her career in 1964 after attending a Rolling Stones party, where she was discovered by Andrew Loog Oldham. After the release of her hit single “As Tears Go By”, she became an international star. Her debut album Marianne Faithfull (1965) (released simultaneously with her album Come My Way) was a commercial success followed by a number of albums on Decca Records. From 1966 to 1970, she had a highly publicised romantic relationship with Mick Jagger. Her popularity was further enhanced by her film roles, such as I’ll Never Forget What’s’isname (1967), The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968), and Hamlet (1969). However, her popularity was overshadowed by personal problems in the 1970s. During that time she was anorexic, homeless, and a heroin addict.

Noted for her distinctive voice, Faithfull’s previously melodic and higher registered vocals (which were prevalent throughout her career in the 1960s) were affected by severe laryngitis, coupled with persistent drug abuse during the 1970s, permanently altering her voice, leaving it raspy, cracked and lower in pitch. This new sound was praised as “whisky soaked” by some critics for helping capture the raw emotions expressed in her music.

After a long commercial absence, Faithfull made a comeback with the 1979 release of her critically acclaimed album Broken English. The album was a commercial success and marked a resurgence of her musical career. Broken English earned Faithfull a nomination for Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance and is often regarded as her “definitive recording.” She followed with a series of albums, including Dangerous Acquaintances (1981), A Child’s Adventure (1983), and Strange Weather (1987). Faithfull also wrote three books about her life: Faithfull: An Autobiography (1994), Memories, Dreams & Reflections (2007), and Marianne Faithfull: A Life on Record (2014).

Faithfull is listed on VH1‘s “100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll” list. She received the World Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2009 Women’s World Awards and was made a Commandeur of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the government of France.

Richard Clare Danko (December 29, 1943 – December 10, 1999) was a Canadian musician, bassist, songwriter and singer, best known as a member of The Band.

Danko was born on December 29, 1943 in Blayney, Ontario, a farming community outside the town of Simcoe, the third of four sons in a musical family of Ukrainian descent. He grew up listening to live music at family gatherings and to country music, blues and R&B on the radio. He especially liked country music, and often his mother would let him stay up late to listen to the Grand Ole Opry on the radio.

It was Danko who found the pink house on Parnassus Lane in Saugerties, New York, which became known as Big Pink. Danko, Hudson, and Manuel moved in, and Robertson lived nearby. The Band’s musical sessions with Dylan took place in the basement of Big Pink, between June and October 1967, generating recordings that were officially released in 1975 as The Basement Tapes. In October, the Hawks began demo recordings for their first album, with Helm rejoining the group in that month. Their manager, Albert Grossman, secured them a recording deal with Capitol Records in late 1967.

From January to March 1968, the Band recorded their debut album, Music from Big Pink, in recording studios in New York and Los Angeles. On this album, Danko sang lead vocal on three songs: “Caledonia Mission”, “Long Black Veil” and “This Wheel’s on Fire.”

Before the Band could promote the album by touring, Danko was severely injured in a car accident, breaking his neck and back in six places, which put him in traction for months. While he was in traction, Danko’s girlfriend, Grace Seldner, informed him that she was pregnant, and he proposed from his hospital bed. When they married, Danko was still in a neck brace. Rick and Grace divorced in October 1980.

The Band finally made their concert debut at Bill Graham‘s Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco in April 1969. By this time, they were already hard at work on their eponymous second album. On that record, sometimes known as the Brown Album, Danko sang what would become two of his signature songs—and two of the group’s best-loved classics: “When You Awake” and “Unfaithful Servant.” Both songs exemplified Danko’s talents as a lead singer and demonstrated his naturally plaintive voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6QxPkXzEQ4

Willie James Humphrey (December 29, 1900 – June 7, 1994) was a New Orleans jazz clarinetist. Willie Humphrey was born in a musical family, the son of prominent local clarinetist and music teacher Willie Eli Humphrey; his brothers Earl Humphrey and Percy Humphrey also became well known professional musicians.

After establishing himself with such New Orleans bands as the Excelsior and George McCullum‘s band, Humphrey traveled up north, playing with such other New Orleans musicians as Lawrence Duhé, and King Oliver in Chicago (Photos show Humphrey with Duhé’s band playing in the stands for the infamous 1919 World Series). In Saint Louis, Missouri in the 1920s he made his first recordings.

Back in New Orleans, he played for many years with the Eureka and Young Tuxedo Brass bands, the bands of Paul Barbarin and Sweet Emma Barrett, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

Humphrey’s clarinet playing remained vigorous and continued to grow more inventive in his old age.