mick laBriola

Louis “Kid Shots” Madison (19 February 1899, New Orleans – September 1948, New Orleans) was an American jazz cornetist.

David Wakeling (born 19 February 1956) is an English singer, songwriter and musician, best known for his work with the band the Beat (known in North America as the English Beat) and General Public.

William “Smokey” Robinson Jr. (born February 19, 1940) is an American R&B and soul singer, songwriter, record producer, and former record executive. He was the founder and frontman of the pioneering Motown vocal group the Miracles, for which he was also chief songwriter and producer. He led the group from its 1955 origins, when they were called The Five Chimes, until 1972, when he retired from the group to focus on his role as Motown Records vice president. Robinson returned to the music industry as a solo artist the following year. He left Motown in 1999.

Robinson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and awarded the 2016 Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for his lifetime contributions to popular music. He is a double Hollywood Walk of Fame Inductee, as a solo artist (1983) and as a member of The Miracles (2009). In 2022, he was inducted into the Black Music & Entertainment Walk of Fame.

David Keith Murray (born February 19, 1955 Oakland, CA)is an American jazz saxophonist and composer who performs mostly on tenor and bass clarinet. He has recorded prolifically for many record labels since the mid-1970s. He lives in New York City.

Joseph De Lacroix “De De” Pierce (February 18, 1904 – November 23, 1973) was an American jazz trumpeter and cornetist. He is best remembered for the songs “Peanut Vendor” and “Dippermouth Blues”, both with Billie Pierce.

Robert Edward Taylor, Bobby Taylor (February 18, 1934, died 7-23-2017) born in Washington, D.C., was raised in Washington. As a young man, he moved to New York City and sang in doo-wopgroups with singers who later joined successful acts such as Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers and Little Anthony and the Imperials. In 1958 he began his music career as a member of The Four Pharaohs, who released a few locally-selling recordings in the Columbus, Ohio area.

Buddy Cage (February 18, 1946 – February 5, 2020 Toronto, ON) was an American pedal steel guitarist, best known as a longtime member of the New Riders of the Purple Sage.

Popular both as a performer and session musician, he played with many bands and recording artists, including Anne Murray, Bob Dylan, Brewer & Shipley, David Bromberg, and the Zen Tricksters.

Irma Thomas (Lee; born February 18, 1941 Ponchatoula, LA) is an American singer from New Orleans. She is known as the “Soul Queen of New Orleans”. Thomas is a contemporary of Aretha Franklin and Etta James, but never experienced their level of commercial success. In 2007, she won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album for After the Rain, her first Grammy in a career spanning over 50 years.

Born Irma Lee, in Ponchatoula, Louisiana, United States, she was the daughter of Percy Lee, a steel chipper, and Vader Lee, who worked as a maid. As a teenager, she sang with a Baptist church choir. She auditioned for Specialty Records at the age of 13. By the time she was 19, she had been married twice and had four children. Keeping her second ex-husband’s surname, she worked as a waitress in New Orleans, occasionally singing with bandleader Tommy Ridgley, who helped her land a record deal with the local Ron label. Her first single, “Don’t Mess with My Man”, was released in late 1959, and reached number 22 on the US Billboard R&B chart.