July 19th

Musical birthdays today include variety singer Vicki Carr [née Florencia Cardona] (82), Average White Band bassist Alan Gorrie (77), original Eagles guitarist Bernie Leadon (76), Brian May (76), ex-Bauhaus drummer Kevin Haskins (62), Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn (55), Symphony X lead singer Russell Allen (52), trip hop/hip hop producer Wax Tailor [né Jean-Christophe Le Saoût] (48), ex-Dirty Pretty Things bassist David 'Didz' Hammond (42), and Grizzly Bear drummer Christopher Bear (41).  

Shoutout to the Great Beyond for operatic baritone Aldo Protti and Juilliard String Quartet founding member Robert Mann, both born today in 1920... for country singer Sue Thompson, born in 1925... for bluesman Buster Benton, born in 1932... for Commander Cody [né George Frayne IV], who would have been 79... for Grateful Dead keyboardist Keith Godchaux, who would have been 75... for Lynyrd Skynyrd founding member Allen Collins, who would have been 73... for rock journalist & Swell Maps co-founder Nikki Sudden [né Adrian Godfrey], who would have been 67... for country singer Lefty Frizzell, who died on this date in 1975... and for folklorist & musicologist Alan Lomax, who left us in 2002.

Also on July 19th: Franz Liszt gives his final public performance in Yelizavetgrad in the Russian Empire [today Kirovohrad, Ukraine] (1886)... In Vienna, Anton Webern conducts the first performance of his own Five Pieces for Orchestra, one of the shortest known compositions for a full symphony ~ the first movement consists of 6 1/3 bars and lasts 19 seconds (1911)... Sun Records releases Elvis' first single, 'That's All Right' (1954)... George Treadwell, the manager of The Drifters, fires the entire group and hires the then unknown Ben E. King and five other vocalists to replace them (1958)... In the first of the sessions which will produce his album This Is Our Music, Ornette Coleman records the only standard ~ 'Embraceable You' ~ that appears on any of his albums for Atlantic (1960)... Elvis wraps filming on his movie 'Speedway', co-starring Nancy Sinatra (1967)... Among the guests on Johnny Cash's weekly variety show on ABC are Joni Mitchell and The Monkees. Cash himself performs 'Last Train to Clarksville', and The Monkees return the favour by playing the host's own 'Everybody Loves a Nut' (1969)... The tumult of the Stones '72 American tour continues as Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are arraigned for assault & battery in Warwick, RI after getting into a scuffle with a newspaper photographer (1972)... Paul McCartney & Wings have both the № 1 song and album in America with 'Listen to What the Man Said' and Venus and Mars, respectively... Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band rehearse for a reported 19 hours at the Record Plant in NYC before kicking off the Born to Run tour (1975)... Deep Purple split up at the end of a UK tour. David Coverdale goes on to form Whitesnake, while Jon Lord and Ian Paice form a band with Tony Ashton. The classic line up of Blackmore, Gillan, Glover, Lord & Paice will reform in 1984. Glenn Hughes returns to Trapeze and Tommy Bolin puts together his own band [but will die before the end of the year] (1976)... An exhibition featuring paintings by Joni Mitchell, John Mayall, Klaus Voormanm, Ron Wood and Commander Cody opens at the Vorpal Gallery in Laguna Beach, CA (1980)...  Roy Orbison Day is proclaimed in Odessa, TX, as the singer plays there for the first time in 15 years. Orbison receives the keys to the city in a pre-concert ceremony (1981)... Bruce Springsteen plays behind the Iron Curtain for the first time, as he and the E Street Band bring the Tunnel of Love tour to 150,000 concertgoers in East Berlin (1987)... James Brown changes accommodations behind bars after $40,000 in cash and cheques are discovered in his minimum security cell. The Godfather of Soul was given a six year sentence the previous December after several run-ins with the law, including charges of illegal gun possession, resisting arrest, assault and leading the authorities on several high-speed of car chases. His new home will be at a medium security cell at the Stevenson Correctional Institute in Columbia, SC (1989)... The Spice Girls make their debut on Top of the Pops, performing 'Wannabe', the first of their nine UK № 1s (1996)... Ozzy Osbourne and his former Black Sabbath band mate Tony Iommi settle a long-running legal dispute over the use of the group's name. Ozzy filed suit against the guitarist in May of last year, accusing Iommi of falsely claiming to be the sole owner of the Black Sabbath name by lodging an application with the US Patent and Trademark Office. The pair release a joint statement confirming they have settled the dispute 'amicably' (2010).