June 12th

Musical birthdays today include Roy Harper (82), blue-eyed soul singer Len Barry (81), Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos (73), Rocky Burnette (70), They Might Be Giants singer & multi-instrumentalist John Linnell (64), Black Flag bassist Kira Roessler (61), rapper Bounty Killer [né Rodney Price] (51), Dirtbombs drummer Ben Blackwell (41), and Anarbor lead guitarist Dave Melilo (35).  

Shoutout to the Great Beyond for early New orleans jazz cornet player Emmett Hardy, born on this day in 1903... for big band & pop singer Vic Damone, born in 1928... for country songwriter & producer Chips Moman, who would have been 86... for Chick Corea, who would have been 82... for soul singer Lyn Collins, who would have been 75... for former King Crimson bassist & lead singer John Wetton, who would have been 74... for former Boston lead singer Brad Delp, who would have been 72... for original Pretenders bassist Pete Farndon, who would have been 71...  for original Blue Traveler bassist Bobby Sheehan, who would have been 54... for bandleader Jimmy Dorsey, who died on this date in 1957... for Russian singer-songwriter Bulat Okudzhava, who passed away in 1997... and for composer Györgi Ligeti, who left us today in 2006. 

Also on June 12th: Composer Gabriel Fauré becomes director of the Paris Conservatory (1905)... The Beatles arrive in Adelaide, Australia and are met by some 250,000 fans ~ the largest single greeting the group would ever receive ~ who line the route from the airport to the city centre. The Fab Four will play their first four shows down under at Adelaide's Centennial Hall (1964)... The Beatles are included in the Queen's birthday honours list to each receive the MBE. Protests pour into Buckingham Palace, with MP Hector Dupuis saying "British Royalty has put me on the same level as a bunch of vulgar numbskulls"... The Supremes become the first American group to score five consecutive US № 1s when their latest single 'Back in My Arms again' tops the Billboard chart (1965)... Pink Floyd appear at the Marquee Club in Wardour Street, London. It is at this show that future co-manager Peter Jenner sees the band live for the first time. Floyd go on to sign a management contract with Jenner and Andrew King on the 31st of October (1966)... Bob Dylan’s album Greatest Hits peaks at № 10 on the US chart. The cover photograph was taken by Rowland Scherman at Dylan's November 28th, 1965, concert in Washington, D.C., and will win the 1967 Grammy award for Best Album Cover, Photography. The original album package also included Milton Glaser's now-familiar psychedelic poster depicting Bob with rainbow hair (1967)... Capitol Records releases Band of Gypsys, the last full-length Jimi Hendrix album to appear in the guitarist's lifetime (1970)... With the help of her mother, a barefoot Ronnie Spector walks out of her husband Phil's Beverly Hills mansion for the last time, leaving behind her adopted son, three year old Donté, and six year old twins, Louis and Gary. Within days she files for a divorce that will be granted in 1974 (1972)... Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt and Gary 'US' Bonds all appear at a rally for nuclear disarmament in NYC's Central Park before a crowd of over 450,000 (1982)... The Elvis Presley Autoland Museum opens at Graceland. The museum contains over 30 cars which were owned by the King, including his famous Pink Cadillac, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Stutz Blackhawks, a 1975 Dino Ferrari, a 1956 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible, and the red MG that Elvis drove in the film Blue Hawaii (1989)... UB40 have their third UK № 1 with their version of ('I Can't Help) Falling in Love with You, also a chart-topper for Elvis in 1962 (1993)... Sinead O'Connor announces that she is a lesbian. The mother of two tells US magazine Curve that she has been in the closet for years saying, "I am a lesbian. I haven't been very open about that. I've gone out with blokes because I haven't necessarily been terribly comfortable about being a lesbian" (2000)... Van Morrison, Queen, Little Richard and Phil Collins are inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in a ceremony in NYC (2003).