July 11th

Musical birthdays today include jazz trumpeter Henry Lowther (79), classical guitarist Liona Boyd (71), House Music pioneer & producer Peter Brown (67), former Bauhaus frontman Peter Murphy (63), ex-Black Uhuru vocalist Michael Rose (63), Richie Sambora (61), Suzanne Vega (61), Weezer bassist Scott Shriner (55), Uh Huh Her keyboardist Leisha Haley (49), Andrew Bird (47), Lil' Kim [née Kimberly Jones] (45), Kathleen Edwards (42), and One Night Only lead singer George Craig (30). 

Shoutout to the Great Beyond for operatic tenor Nicolai Gedda, born in 1925... for early rock saxophonist Danny Flores, who would have been 90 today... for R&B singer Thurston Harris, who would have been 86... for Bonnie Pointer, who would have been 70... for Bonham lead singer Daniel MacMaster, who would have been 52... for George Gershwin, who died on this date in 1937... for gospel singer Walter Hawkins, who passed away in 2010... and for former Grass Roots bassist Rob Grill, who left us today in 2012.   

Also on July 11th: President John Adams signs an Act of Congress establishing the US Marine Band (1798)... In Moscow, 9-year-old pianist Anton Rubinstein makes his concert debut (1839)... The Boston Pops gives its first performance (1885)... Leonard Bernstein makes his debut on the podium, conducting the Boston Pops in a performance of Wagner's Prelude to Act I of 'Die Meistersinger' at an open air concert at the Charles River Bandshell (1940)... The Beatles appear live on the BBC Television program 'Lucky Stars (Summer Spin)', performing ‘A Hard Day's Night’, ‘Long Tall Sally’, ‘Things We Said Today’ and ‘You Can't Do That’. To avoid the throng of fans waiting for them, the group arrive at the Teddington Studio Centre by boat, traveling down the River Thames (1964)... On his only tour of Japan, John Coltrane and sidemen [and wife Alice, now his pianist] record a performance at the Shinjuku Kosei Nenkin Hall in Tokyo that will be released posthumously on the Live in Japan album (1966)... Having left The New Christy Minstrels the day before, Kenny Rogers forms The First Edition with his friends Thelma Camacho and Mike Settle (1967)... The Doors release the album Waiting for the Sun (1968)... David Bowie's 'Space Oddity' is released as a single in the UK. It will not arrive in the American market as a 45 RPM until 1973, however (1969)... Bob Dylan has his fifth UK № 1 album with Self-Portrait. Dogged by scathing reviews in America, the LP still manages to rise to № 4 stateside. The top single in the US this week is Three Dog Night's version of Randy Newman's 'Mama Told Me Not to Come' (1970)... The Bruce Springsteen Band open for Humble Pie at the Sunshine Inn in Asbury Park, NJ. After the show, an impressed Peter Frampton tells Springsteen and his musicians that he would like to have them open for his group on a national basis. Frampton also said he would be happy to get the band an audition with his record label, A&M. For reasons which remain unclear, Springsteen’s manager Tinker West turns down both offers on the spot (1971)... The Vortex Club on London's Wardour Street opens its doors for the first time, with Siouxie and the Banshees, Adam and the Ants, The Slits and Sham 69 on the bill (1977)... The Specials have their second and final UK № 1 single with 'Ghost Town'. Although the song is about Coventry, the band chose to film the video of themselves driving a Vauxhall Cresta around some empty London streets (1981)... A range of eight neckties designed by Jerry Garcia goes on sale in the US. US Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton reportedly buys a complete set. The collection will gross several million in the US by the end of the year (1992)... 15-year-old Billie Piper becomes the youngest female in British chart history to have a № 1 single that debuts at the top spot with 'Because We Want to', and the second-youngest to reach № 1 at all after 14-year-old Helen Shapiro, who achieved the feat in 1961 with 'You Don't Know' (1998)... The funeral of John Entwistle takes place in The Cotswolds. More than 200 mourners including his former bandmates in The Who file into the 12th century Church of St Edward in Stow-on-the-Wold (2002)... 
McFly go to № 1 on the UK album chart with Room on the 3rd Floor in its first week of release. They break the record set by The Beatles as the youngest group ever to debut at the top spot (2004).