August 21st

 

Musical birthdays today include former Statler Brothers bass vocalist Harold Reid (81), Jackie DeShannon (76), ex-Journey drummer Steve Smith (66), System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian (53), Prodigy founder Liam Howlett (49), Kelis Rogers AKA Kelis (41), and former Burning the Masses lead singer Cameron 'Big Chocolate' Argon (30). 

Shoutout to the Great Beyond for Count Basie, born on this day in 1904... for bebop trumpeter Art Farmer, born in 1928... for Kenny Rogers, who would have been 82 today... for Joe Strummer, who would have been 68... for Robert Moog, inventor of the synthesizer that bears his name, who died on this date in 2005... and for Nashville session drummer Buddy Harman, who played on Patsy Cline's 'Crazy' [see below] and Tammy Wynette's 'Stand by Your Man', and who left us in 2008. 

Also on August 21: The US Marine Corps Band gives its first performance for the general public in Washington, DC (1800)... Motown release The Marvelettes' 'Please Mr. Postman', which will become the label's first № 1 single (1961)... Patsy Cline records the classic Willie Nelson song, ‘Crazy’. Cline is still on crutches after going through a car windshield in a head-on collision two months earlier and has difficulty reaching the high notes of the song at first due to her broken ribs. 'Crazy'will spend 21 weeks on the charts and eventually become one of her signature tunes.(1962)... During today's Beatles concert in Las Vegas, the band stop the show twice to plead with the fans to stop pelting the stage with jellybeans. This has become a regular occurrence at the group's gigs ever since they revealed that the spherical snacks are among their favourite treats (1964)... The Rolling Stones top the US album charts for the first time with their LP 'Out of Our Heads' (1965)... On their final US tour, the Beatles perform in two cities because of a cancellation due to rain the previous day. First they play at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. They then fly to St. Louis for a concert at Busch Stadium, where they perform under a tarpaulin due to a downpour. Paul McCartney will later say it was this gig that convinced him that the Beatles should stop performing live (1966)... The Doors go into the studio in Los Angeles to begin recording their second album (1967)... Linda Ronstadt makes her Broadway debut in a production of Gilbert & Sullivan's 'Pirates of Penzance' (1980)... Bono marries longtime girlfriend Alison Stewart at All Saints Church in the Dublin suburb of Raheny. Adam Clayton is best man (1982)... Ramones guitarist Johnny Ramone has a four-hour neurosurgical operation at Bellevue Hospital after being found unconscious on a Lower East Side street where he had been involved in a brawl (1983)... In Columbus, OH, Bob Dylan plays the 600th show on his so-called 'Never-ending Tour' (1994)... David Byrne's lawyers file for an injunction to keep the other members of the band from touring as The Heads. The lawsuit will be settled out of court (1996)... Oasis' third album 'Be Here Now', becomes one of the fastest selling albums ever, shifting over 350,000 units on the first day of release (1997)... A Beatles fan in America foils three men breaking into a shop in Liverpool, England. The man, who had logged onto a site streaming live footage of Mathew Street and a forthcoming Beatles festival, saw the men smash the window of a shop and climb inside. He phoned Merseyside Police, who arrested the perpetrators at the scene (2006)... Paedophile and ex-pop star Gary Glitter returns to Thailand after being refused entry to Hong Kong. Chinese authorities inform the UK Foreign Office that they barred Glitter from entry. He was earlier deported from Vietnam after spending almost three years in jail for sexually abusing two pre-teen girls. He flew to Hong Kong from Bangkok after refusing to fly to the UK, and had made a plea for medical treatment after saying he was suffering a heart attack (2008).