January 13th

 

Musical birthdays today include operatic baritone Renato Bruson (87), santoor virtuoso Shivkumar Sharma (85), Yes vocalist Trevor Rabin (69), Megadeath bassist James LoMenzo (64), Flaming Lips lead singer Wayne Coyne (62), Madness frontman Graham 'Suggs' McPherson (62), Trace Adkins (61), 3OH!3 singer Nathaniel Motte (39), and ex-Vanilla Ninja vocalist Triinu Kivilaan (34). 

Shoutout to the Great Beyond for classical violinist Nathan Milstein, born on this day in 1904... for jazz guitarist Joe Pass, born in 1929... for Stephen Foster, who died on this date in 1864... for Donny Hathaway, who took his own life today in 1979 at the age of 33... for Michael Brecker, who passed away in 2007... and for Teddy Pendergrass, who left us today in 2011.   

Also on January 13th: Wagner completes his final opera Parsifal (1882)... The first public radio broadcast takes place when a performance of Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana is sent out over the airwaves from the Metropolitan Opera House in NYC (1910)... The first country music television show, 'Midwestern Hayride', goes on the air at WLW in Cincinnati, OH (1948)... Chubby Checker takes 'The Twist' to № 1 for the second time [the first was in September, 1960], a unique feat in the history of the Billboard chart (1962)... Bob Dylan releases the album The Times They Are A-Changin' (1964)... Dylan begins recording the landmark album Bringing It All Back Home at Columbia Studio A in NYC. Accompanied by just producer Tom Wilson and John Sebastian on bass, he spends most of the day laying down acoustic tracks (1965)... The Rolling Stones appear on The Ed Sullivan Show to perform their new single 'Let's Spend the Night Together'. The producers insist that Mick Jagger sing the words 'Let's spend some time together' instead... Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are both in the audience for a Jimi Hendrix Experience gig at the Bag O'Nails club in London (1967)... Johnny Cash records the Live at Folsom Prison album (1968)... The Beatles release the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album... Elvis Presley goes into American Sound Studios in Memphis to begin the sessions that will produce 'Suspicious Minds', his final US № 1. It is the first time that Elvis has recorded in his adopted hometown since his Sun Records debut in 1956 (1969)... Steel Mill featuring Bruce Springsteen become the unplanned headliners at the Matrix in San Francisco when scheduled lead act Boz Scaggs falls ill. Philip Elwood, rock critic for the SF Examiner who came to review Scaggs, writes a rave review of Steel Mill instead (1970)... Sarah Caldwell takes up the baton and becomes the first woman to conduct the NY Metropolitan Opera orchestra, leading the musicians in a performance of La Traviata (1976)... With a budget of only £1,500 borrowed from Stewart Copeland's brother Miles, The Police begin recording their debut album at Surrey Sound Studios outside of London with producer Nigel Gray (1978)... BBC Radio 1 announce a ban on 'Relax' by Frankie Goes To Hollywood, after DJ Mike Read calls it 'obscene'; a BBC TV ban also follows. The song will go on to become a UK № 1 and spends a total of 48 weeks on the national singles chart (1984)... The off-Broadway musical 'The Fantasticks' closes after a run of 17,162 performances over nearly 42 years (2002)... An article in the New Musical Express says that more songs have been written about Elvis Presley than any other recording artist. It lists over 220 songs including: ‘Graceland’ by Paul Simon, ‘A Room at the Heartbreak Hotel’ by U2, ‘Calling Elvis’ by Dire Straits, ‘Happy Birthday Elvis’, by Loudon Wainwright III, ‘There's a Guy Works down the Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis’ by Kirsty MacColl, ‘I Saw Elvis in a UFO’ by Ray Stevens, ‘Elvis Has Left the Building’ by Frank Zappa, and 'My Dog Thinks I'm Elvis' by Ray Herndon (2005).