Friday 23 August 2013

August 23

Musical birthdays today include satirist Mark Russell (82), South African jazz singer Letta Mbulu (71), Rick Springfield (64), Bucks Fizz singer Bobby G (60), Stone Temple Pilots guitarist Dean DeLeo (52), Happy Mondays lead singer Shaun Ryder (51), Strokes frontman Julian Casablancas (35) and Lianne La Havas (24). 

Shoutout to the Great Beyond for singer-songwriter and activist Malvina Reynolds, born on this day in 1900... for song & dance man Gene Kelly, born in 1912... for Keith Moon, who would have been 67 today... and for jazz trumpeter and bandleader Maynard Ferguson, who left us today in 2006. 

Also on August 23: John Lennon marries Cynthia Powell at the Mount Pleasant registry office in Liverpool. He then plays  gig with the Beatles that night at the Riverpark Ballroom (1962)... The Rolling Stones make their first of 20 appearances on the pop music show Ready, Steady, Go! (1963)... 'She Loves You' enters the British singles charts at no. 1 (1963)... The Beatles play Shea Stadium for the last time, with some 11,000 seats unsold... At home, the group are atop the British singles charts again with the double A-side Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby. According to Paul, he came up with the name of the latter song after working with actress Eleanor Bron in the film Help!, and from frequent patronage of a wine & spirits shop in Bristol called Rigby & Evens Ltd. (1966)...  In the course of a wild 21st birthday party during the Who's current US tour, Keith Moon drives a Lincoln Continental limousine into the swimming pool of the Holiday Inn in Flint, Michigan (1967)... Joni Mitchell plays live in the UK for the first time when she opens for folk rockers The Piccadilly Line at the Marquee Club in London (1967)... The Heatwave Festival takes place in Toronto, Talking Heads, the B-52s, the Pretenders and Elvis Costello are among those on the bill. Tickets cost $30, and with only 50,000 attending, the event loses over $1 million (1980)... Queen become the first western rock group to receive official approval in Iran since the Khomeini revolution in 1979. Freddy Mercury was of Iranian ancestry, and bootleg CDs and tapes had been available for years (2004). 

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