January 31st

 

Musical birthdays today include composer Philip Glass (87), blues harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite (80), KC and the Sunshine Band lead singer Harry Casey (73), Roxy Music lead guitarist Phil Manzanera (73), former Whitesnake lead guitarist Adrian Vandenberg (70), John Lydon AKA Johnny Rotten (68), Lloyd Cole (63), original Nirvana drummer Chad Channing (57), The Cure drummer Jason Cooper (57), Justin Timberlake (43), Greek pop singer Elena Paparizou (42), and Marcus Mumford (37).

Shoutout to the Great Beyond for Franz Schubert, born on this day in 1797... for song & dance man Eddie Cantor, born in 1892... for folklorist & ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax, born in 1915... for Mario Lanza and Carol Channing, both born in 1921... for Chuck 'King of the Stroll' Willis, born in 1928... for former Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman, who would have been 60... for Edwin Howard Armstrong, the inventor of FM radio, who died on this date in 1954... for blues harmonica player Slim Harpo, who passed away in 1970... and for former Buffalo Springfield drummer Dewey Martin, who died in 2009... and for King Crimson and Asia lead singer and bassist John Wetton, who left us today in 2018.

Also on January 31st: RCA engineers demonstrate the first programmable sound synthesizer... Decca Records announces that Bill Haley & His Comets' 'Rock around the Clock' has sold over one million copies in the UK, mostly on 10" 78 RPMs (1957)... The Beatles spend a second day at Knole Park, Sevenoaks, Kent to complete filming for the 'Strawberry Fields Forever' promotional video. The film is shot in colour, for the benefit of the US market, since British television is still broadcasting only in black and white. Taking time out from filming, John Lennon buys a 1843 poster from an antiques shop in Surrey which provides him with many of the lyrics for song 'Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite' (1967)... Led Zeppelin play the first of two nights at the Fillmore East in NYC during the band's first North American tour. Porter's Popular Preachers open the night, then Zeppelin take the stage. Legend has it that the English new arrivals' show was so powerful and received such an enthusiastic audience reception that headliners Iron Butterfly refused to follow them (1969)... The Jackson 5 go to the top of the US singles chart with 'I Want You Back'. The song, originally written for Gladys Knight & The Pips, is the first of four stateside № 1s for the group (1970)... Winners in a readers poll for UK Music weekly Sounds include: Best album of 1975: 'A Night At The Opera', by Queen; best single: 'Bohemian Rhapsody'; best band: Queen; musician of the year: Mike Oldfield; female singer of the year: Maddy Prior of Steeleye Span; best new band: Rainbow; biggest bore of the year: The Bay City Rollers (1976)... Blondie have the № 1 single in America with 'The Tide Is High' (1981)... Paul Simon's Graceland is the № 1 album in the UK ~ the record spends a total of 101 weeks on the chart (1987)... The Strokes make their UK debut playing the Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth (2000)... More than 35 years after his death, Jim Morrison is enlisted to help fight global warming. A spokesman for the Global Cool Campaign announces that 'Woman in the Window', a previously unreleased poem written and recorded by The Doors frontman shortly before he died in 1971, is being set to music and used to publicize the issue (2007).