January 12th

Musical birthdays today include classical pianist & composer Raimonds Pauls (87), Oak Ridge Boys vocalist William Lee Golden (84), former Stone the Crows lead singer Maggie Bell (78), ex-Sly & the Family Stone trumpeter Cynthia Robinson (77), jazz guitarist John Etheridge (75), former Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds guitarist Blixa Bargeld (64), Os Infernais frontman Nando Reis (60), former White Zombie lead singer Robert 'Rob Zombie' Cummings (58), former Rage against the Machine frontman Zack de la Rocha (53), Raekwon (53), ex-Reel Big Fish bassist Matthew Wong (50), Melanie 'Mel C' Chisholm (49), producer & session multi-instrumentalist Jason Freese (48), and ex-One Direction vocalist Zayne Malik (30). 

Shoutout to the Great Beyond for Delta bluesman Mississippi Fred McDowell, born on this day in 1904... for country singer Tex Ritter, born in 1905... for jazz pianist & singer Jay McShann, born in 1916... for country singer Ray Price, born in 1926... for folk singer & former Limeliter Glenn Yarbrough, born in 1930... for jazz drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, who would have been 83... for fusion keyboardist George Duke, who would have been 77... for NRBQ drummer Tom Ardolino, who would have been 68... for Traffic percussionist Rebop Kwaaku Baah, who died on this date in 1983... for Maurice Gibb, who passed away in 2003... for singer-songwriter Randy Van Warmer, who died in 2004... and for Alice Coltrane, who died in 2007... and for Ronnie Spector, who left us one year ago today. 

Also on January 12: Georg Friedrich Händel's opera Ottone premieres at the King's Theatre in London (1723)... Berry Gordy, Jr. founds Tamla Records in Detroit. When the label is incorporated in April, 1960, the name will be changed to Motown Records, Inc. (1959)... Led Zeppelin's debut album is released in the UK. Recorded at Olympic Studios in Barnes, London, the album took only about 36 hours of studio time to complete at a cost of just £1,782, most of the tracks being recorded 'live' in the studio with almost no overdubs (1969)... The Steve Miller Band have the № 1 single in the USA with 'The Joker' (1974)... EMI Records issue a statement saying that they feel unable to promote The Sex Pistols records in view of the adverse publicity the group has generated over the last two months... Keith Richards is fined £750 for possession of cocaine found in his car after he was involved in an automobile collision the previous November... The Police have their first rehearsal at the London flat of drummer Stewart Copeland, with Henry Padovani on guitar (1977)... The Washington Post reports that the outgoing Carter administration has added albums by Bob Dylan, Kiss and The Sex Pistols to the official White House record library (1981)... Van Morrison fails to turn up at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction dinner, making him the first living honoree not to attend (1993)... British Airways staff file a formal complaint against Oasis singer Liam Gallagher after he had grabbed a flight attendant's bottom, refused to stop smoking and thrown food around the 1st Class cabin during a flight from London to Rio De Janeiro (2001)... It is announced by the City of Liverpool that the Strawberry Field Children's Home immortalised by The Beatles is to close. The  establishment in Woolton  was made famous when John Lennon wrote 'Strawberry Fields Forever' from his memories of playing there as a child (2005).