Previously on this day

Bryan Adams is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter who won two awards in 1992 at the 34th Grammy Awards for his work on the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves soundtrack. He has been awarded the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia for his contribution to popular music and his philanthropic work. Adams was inducted into the Music Hall of Fame at Canada’s Juno Awards in April 2006.

Adams was born in Kingston, Ontario, Canada and grew up in North Vancouver, B.C. He quit high school to play nightclubs with bands. In 1978, he sent a few demo recordings to A&M Records in Toronto and was signed to them not long afterwards. The self-titled debut album was released in February of 1980 and marked the beginning of a long songwriting partnership between Adams and co-writer Jim Vallance.

Cut Like a Knife was released in 1983 and was Adams’ breakout album due mainly to the lead single “Straight from the Heart.” His best-selling album, Reckless, peaked at #1 on the Billboard 200. It was released in 1984 and featured the singles “Run to You”, “Summer of ’69”, “Heaven”, and “It’s Only Love.” The song “(Everything I Do) I Do For You,” featured on the Waking Up the Neighbours album, was used in the film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and spent a record-breaking 16 weeks at # on the UK Singles Chart. It sold four million copies in the United States.

Share this page

Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American southern rock band that became prominent in the southern United States in 1973 and rose to worldwide recognition before several members, including lead vocalist and primary songwriter Ronnie Van Zant, died in a crash in 1977 five miles northeast of Gillsburg, Mississippi.

On Thursday, October 20, 1977, just three days after the release of Street Survivors and four dates into their most successful headlining tour to date, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s chartered Convair 240 developed mechanical difficulties near the end of their flight from Greenville, South Carolina to LSU in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The pilots attempted an emergency landing on a small airstrip but the plane ran out of fuel and crashed in a forest near Gillsburg. Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, Cassie Gaines, assistant road manager Dean Kirkpatrick and the two pilots were killed on impact.

Medical personnel arrived quickly and ferried out the injured and the dead. Victims were taken to the hospital in nearby McComb and Jackson. Artemis Pyle, the only band member who was ambulatory, crawled out of the plane wreckage and hiked some distance from the crash site through swampy woods with two road crew members to get help. Lynyrd Skynyrd disbanded after the tragedy. A tribute band was formed in 1987 for a reunion tour with Johnny Van Zant, Ronnie’s younger brother, and continues to record music today.

Share this page

Born in Croydon, England, Kirsty MacColl first came to notice when Cheswick Records released an EP by local punk rock band the Drug Addix with MacColl on backing vocals. Stiff Records executives were not impressed with the band, but liked her and subsequently signed MacColl to a solo deal.

Her debut solo single “They Don’t Know,” released in 1979, was a huge airplay hit in the United Kingdom, peaking at #3 in terms of airplay. MacColl moved to Polydor Records in 1981 and she had a UK #14 hit with “The Guy Works Down the Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis.” Lasting success again failed to materialize, and in 1983, Polydor dropped her. She returned to Stiff, where two pop singles went nowhere but a cover of Billy Bragg’s “A New England” in 1985 got to #7 in the UK charts and included two extra verses specially written by Bragg for MacColl.

When Stiff went bankrupt in 1986, MacColl was left unable to record in her own right and she found work as a backing vocalist on tracks for The Smiths, Talking heads, Big Country and The Wonder Stuff among others. MacColl re-emerged in the British charts in December 1987, reaching #2 with The Pogues on “Fairytale of New York,” a duet with Shane MacGowan. While vacationing with her sons in Mexico in 2000, MacColl was hit and killed instantly by a speeding powerboat while pushing one of her sons to safety.

Share this page

Jerry Lee Lewis is an American rock and roll and country music singer, songwriter and pianist. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and his pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

Lewis began playing piano in his youth and his parents mortgaged their farm to buy him a piano. Influenced by a piano-playing older cousin, the radio, and the sounds from the black juke joint across the tracks, Lewis developed his own style, mixing rhythm and blues, boogie-woogie, gospel, and country music. He paid his dues in clubs in Mississippi and became a part of the emerging rock and roll sound, cutting his first demo in 1954. During December 1956, Lewis began recording prolifically, both as a solo artist and as a session musician at Sun Records.

In 1957, Lewis recorded hit singles “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire,” which was his biggest hit, bringing him national and international fame. During a May 1958 British tour, it was reported that Lewis’ third wife, Maya Gale Brown, was his first cousin once removed and only 13 years old. The publicity cause an uproar and the tour was canceled after only three concerts. The scandal followed Lewis home to America, and as a result, he was blacklisted from radio and almost vanished from the music scene. In 1989, a major motion picture based on his early life in rock and roll, Great Balls of Fire, brought him back into the public eye.

Share this page

Born in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, Joan Jett is an American rock guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer, and actress. She is best known for her hit single, “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” which was #1 on the Billboard charts from March 20 to May 1, 1982, as well as for her other popular recordings including “Crimson and Clover”, “Do You Wanna Touch Me”, “Light of Day”, and “Bad Reputation.”

Jett’s musical and songwriting approach is heavily influenced by the hard-edged, hard beat-driven rhythms common to many rock bands of her native Philadelphia, often featuring lyrics surrounding themes of lost love, criticisms of insincerity, the struggles and resolution of the American working class. Jett is one of the original members of The Runaways along with Kari Krome and Sandy West. Jett sang lead vocal, played rhythm guitar and wrote or co-wrote much of the band’s material. The Runaways were popular overseas but could not garner the same success in the United States.

After the band disbanded in spring 1979, Jett pursued a solo career in England and then later that year, moved to Long Beach, New York. Jett recorded her solo debut in 1980 but it was rejected by 28 major labels in the U.S. and so she released it independently – inadvertently becoming the first female performer to start her own record label. She soon formed the Blackhearts and went on to record “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” which in the first half of 1982 was #1 on the Billboard charts for seven weeks in a row.

Share this page

Amy Winehouse is an English singer-songwriter, known for her eclectic mix of various musical genres including soul, jazz, rock and roll, and R&B. She is best known for her soulful, powerful contralto vocals. Winehouse’s 2003 debut album Frank did well commercially and critically in her native Britain.

Her 2006 follow-up album Back in Black was inspired by Winehouse’s love of girl groups of the 1950s and 1960s. Working with musician and producer Mark Ronson, the album spawned a number of singles including, most famously “Rehab,” which went to number one on the UK Album Charts numerous times and was named one of the 10 Best Songs of 2007 by Time magazine. It also led to six Grammy Award nominations and five wins, tying the record for the most wins by a female artist in a single night, and made her the first British singer to win five Grammys, including three of the “Big Four”: Best New Artist, Record of the Year, and Song of the Year.

Winehouse has received media attention for her distinctive style, most notably her signature beehive hairstyle, and has been the muse to fashion designers like Karl Lagerfeld. The singer’s problems with drugs and alcohol addiction, as well as self-destructive behavior, have become regular tabloid news since 2007. She and her husband have been plagued by legal troubles that has led to the cancellation of several tour dates.

Share this page

George Roger Waters is an English rock musician who is best known as the bass player, main songwriter, and lead vocalist of the English rock band Pink Floyd from 1964 to 1985. Following his split with the band in the 1980s, he began a moderately successful solo career, releasing three studio albums, one soundtrack, and staging one of the largest concerts ever, The Wall Concert in Berlin in 1990.

Waters was born in Great Bookham, Surrey and grew up in Cambridge. He and Syd Barrett attended the Morley Memorial Junior School and attended the same high school together. In 1965, he co-founded Pink Floyd along with Barrett, Richard Wright, and Nick Mason. Their first album was a critical success and positioned the band for stardom. After Barrett’s mental health began deteriorating, leading to erratic behavior, the band approached David Gilmour to replace him in 1967.

Waters began to dictate the band’s new artistic direction and produced thematic ideas that became the impetus for concert albums such as The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here, for which he wrote all of the lyrics and some of the music. After this, Waters became the primary songwriter, composing Animals and The Wall largely by himself. During this time, infighting among the band occurred and in 1985 Pink Floyd broke up.

Share this page

Born in Ankara, Turkey, Joe Strummer was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist, and lead singer of the English punk rock band The Clash. His family spent much time moving from place to place and he spent his childhood in places like Cairo, Mexico City and Bonn. He developed a love of rock music listening to records by Little Richard and The Beach Boys as well as Woody Guthrie.

In 1973, Strummer joined with some friends to form a band called The Vultures. After the band fell apart in 1974, he formed another one called the 101’ers and opened for then-unknown band the Sex Pistols on April 3, 1976. Some time after this show, Strummer was approached by Mick Jones and ended up forming a new band with bassist Paul Simonon, drummer Terry Chimes and guitarist Keith Levene. Simonon named them The Clash and they made their debut on July 4, 1976 opening for the Sex Pistols.

The Clash are considered to be one of the most overtly political, explosive and exciting bands in rock and roll history. Their album London’s Calling was voted best album of the 1980s by Rolling Stone magazine. During their tour in support of the Combat Rock album, the band members began to argue a lot and with tensions high, they began to fall apart. After firing Mick Jones and releasing the album Cut the Crap in 1985, which was panned by fans and critics alike, Strummer disbanded The Clash. He went on to work in film, composing the score to Walker and appearing in Straight to Hell among other films. He began producing solo records in 1989. Strummer died on December 22, 2002, the victim of an undiagnosed congenital heart defect.

Share this page

American Bandstand was a television show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989, hosted by Dick Clark, who also served as producer. The show featured teenagers dancing to Top 40-type music introduced by Clark and at least one popular musical act that, over the decades, ran the gamut from Jerry Lee Lewis to Run DMC. They would usually appear in-person to lip-sync one of their latest singles.

The program premiered locally as a live show, Bandstand, on Philadelphia TV station WFIL-TV on October 7, 1952 and was hosted by Bob Horn, with Lee Stewart as co-host until 1955. The series originally featured Horn hosting two collections of filmed musical performances but this was soon changed to the familiar format of having kids dance to hit records. On July 9, 1956, Horn was fired after a drunk driving arrest and was replaced by Dick Clark.

In late spring of 1957, Clark decided to pitch the show to ABC and after some badgering, the program was picked up nationally, becoming American Bandstand on August 5, 1957. The show was broadcast “live” weekday afternoons and in early 1963 all five shows for the upcoming week were videotaped the preceding Saturday. Clark would often interview teens about their opinions of the songs being played, most memorably through the “Rate-a-Record” segments. American Bandstand’s popularity helped Clark become an American media mogul and inspired other similar long-running music programs, such as Soul Train and Top of the Pops.

Share this page

Born in San Francisco, California, Jerry Garcia was a musician, songwriter, artist and lead guitarist and vocalist of the psychedelic rock band The Grateful Dead. Despite disavowing the role, he was viewed by many as the leader or “spokesman” of the group.

Garcia was one of the original founders of the Grateful Dead and performed with the band for its entire three-decade career which spanned from 1965 to 1995. He also founded and participated in a variety of side projects, including the Jerry Garcia Band, Old and in the Way, the Garcia/Grisman acoustic duo, and Legion of Mary. Garcia also released several solo albums and contributed to a number of albums by other artists over the years as a session musician.

He was well known by many for his distinctive guitar playing and was ranked 13^th in Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Guitarist of All Time.” Garcia was well-noted for his “soulful extended guitar improvisations,” which would frequently feature interplay between himself and his fellow band members. Later in life, he was sometimes ill because of his unstable weight, and in 1986, experienced a diabetic shock that nearly cost him his life. Garcia also struggled with heroin addiction and was residing in a drug rehabilitation facility when he died of a heart attack on August 9, 1995.

Share this page