Musical birthdays today include Tejano accordionist Flaco Jimenez (80), former Canned Heat guitarist Harvey Mandel (74), Vanilla Fudge lead singer Mark Stein (72), Golden Earring frontman George Kooymans (71), Bobby McFerrin (69), Nighthawks Orchestra leader Vince Giordano (67), producer Jimmy Iovine (66), Statler Brothers guitarist & singer Jimmy Fortune (64), Nina Hagen (64), Cheryl Lynn (62), ex-Big Country guitarist Bruce Watson (58), producer Andy Sturmer (54), Lisa Loeb (51), Black Sabbath keyboardist Adam Wakeman (45), Good Charlotte frontmen Benji & Joel Madden (40), and ex-Amen and Beat Union drummer Adam Johnson (38).
Shoutout to the Great Beyond for composer Henry Cowell, born on this day in 1897... for Lawrence Welk, born in 1903... for French song & dance man Claude Francois, who died on this date in 1978... for blues harmonica great Sonny Terry, who passed away in 1986... and for singer-songwriter Jack Hardy, who left us today in 2012.
Also on March 11th: Franz Josef Haydn conducts the premiere of his 92nd Symphony in London, also the composer's first appearance on a British concert stage (1792)... In Berlin, a 20-year-old Felix Mendelssohn conducts the first performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion in nearly 80 years. The concert is a great success, and is credited with sparking the Bach revival, the composer having fallen into complete obscurity since his death in 1750 (1829)... Verdi's 'Rigoletto' premieres at the Teatro la Fenice in Venice (1851)... The NY Metropolitan Opera performs its first [and to date only] opera composed by a woman, Ethel Smyth's 'Der Wald' (1903)... As the filming of 'A Hard Day's Night' continues, The Beatles spend the day shooting the 'I Should Have Known Better' sequence on a soundstage at Twickenham Studios made to look a train guard's cage (1964)... Tom Jones hits № 1 in the UK for the first time with 'It's Not Unusual' (1965)... This week's edition of the ITV show 'Ready Steady Go' is devoted entirely to the music of James Brown (1966)... The Beatles' publisher Dick James reports that 450 versions of 'Yesterday' have now been recorded (1967)... The 'Sitting on the Dock of the Bay' single goes gold in the US exactly 3 months after Otis Redding's death (1968)... Crosby, Stills & Nash win a Grammy for best New Artist. On the same day, the album Deja Vu, with Neil Young now on board as well, is released (1970)... Jim Morrison arrives in Paris and checks into the Hotel George V. He will stay there for a week before moving into what will prove to be his final digs at 17, rue Beautreillis in the Marais quarter (1971)... Neil Young's Harvest tops the album charts in both the US and Britain (1972)... Kate Bush's debut single 'Wuthering Heights' begins a 4-week run at № 1 on the UK charts. Bush had had to contend with the insistence of EMI Records that 'James and the Cold Gun' be the lead single from her first album A Kick Inside (1978)... Oasis record their first demos at The Real People's Studio in Liverpool (1993)... Jarvis Cocker walks free from Kensington police station after prosecutors drop charges against the Pulp lead singer for his 'stage invasion' during Michael Jackson's performance at the Brit Awards on the 19th of February (1996)... The front door of Ozzy Osbourne's childhood home in Birmingham goes up for sale because the present owner of the house is tired of fans defacing it. Ali Mubarrat, who now resides in the house in Lodge Road, Aston, says that over the years it has become a destination of pilgrimage, and that he is going to auction the original door off on eBay, the proceeds to be given to charity (2005)... Madonna is inducted into the US Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame by Justin Timberlake. In her acceptance speech, the 49-year-old pop diva thanks her detractors, including "...those who said I couldn't sing, that I was a one-hit wonder." Leonard Cohen, John Cougar Mellencamp, The Ventures and The Dave Clark Five follow her into the Hall tonight (2008).
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