We Miss You, Dan Fogelberg
Four years ago today Dan Fogelberg left this earth. I still have a hard time accepting it.
The Mysterious Death of Sam Cooke
Los Angeles, December 10, 1964, 9 p.m. Everybody in Martoni’s Italian restaurant had their eye on Sam Cooke. In his Sy Devore suit, the 33-year-old R&B singer cut a dashing figure. With his recent Live at the Copa album climbing the charts, Sam was on the brink of stepping up to the big leagues, a [...]
Censored Songs In American History
Censorship is nothing new. In fact, it was 1735 when the first song was banned in America. Here’s a look at 8 songs that were considered too dangerous or immoral to be heard.
In Response to 9/11: The Healing Power of Music
On this anniversary of 9/11—as on every previous anniversary—I listen to music. No television, no newspapers. Just music. Because songwriters create the melodies that reach places I can’t quite get to on my own, and the words I long to say. Their songs become my heart’s voice and companion. Ten years ago I couldn’t imagine [...]
Harry Connick, Jr. and Branford Marsalis: The Musician’s Village 6 Years After Katrina
It takes more than five hours to make the 350-mile trip from New Orleans to Houston. On Sept. 7, 2005, that proved to be plenty of time for old friends Harry Connick, Jr. and Branford Marsalis to start imagining a way to help get their hometown back on its feet. That journey really began a [...]
Remembering Dan Fogelberg on what would be his 60th Birthday
Most of my readers know about my deep, abiding and often embarrassing love for Dan Fogelberg and his music. He filled the soundtrack of my youth, made me want to learn to play the guitar, was the model for all the moody musicians I fell for in college, and trying to figure out how to [...]
Dylan Plugs In: July 25, 1965
Once in a blue moon, an artist changes history by giving a festival audience exactly what it doesn’t want. Bob Dylan stepped on stage July 25, 1965 at the Newport Folk Festival with an electric band in tow, which many folk purists in the crowd considered a heresy. For them, Dylan’s three-song, plugged-in set represented [...]
Bono’s Defining Moment at Live Aid, July 13, 1985
Over the last three decades the world has become accustomed to the dramatic onstage flair of U2 frontman Bono, who masterfully understands the emotional heft that can be communicated by just the right gesture. That was the case on July 13, 1985 when the group took the stage of Wembley Stadium in London for the [...]
The Mysterious Death of Jim Morrison
Paris. July 2, 1971, early evening. Jim Morrison and his girlfriend Pamela Courson went to the cinema to see Pursued, a western starring Robert Mitchum. At another theater, Jim Morrison sat alone, watching a documentary called Death Valley. Across town, at the Rock ’n’ Roll Circus nightclub, Jim Morrison scored some heroin and OD’d in [...]
Duke Ellington at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival
When he brought his Duke Ellington Orchestra to the Newport Jazz Festival on July 7, 1956, 57-year-old Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington had seen his big-band style replaced in the popular imagination by the bebop of players like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Ellington pushed forward anyway, always experimenting—and one experiment in particular was about to [...]
Remembering Jeff Buckley
Memphis. May 29, 1997, 8:30 p.m. Jeff Buckley and Keith Foti were lost. The two friends had set out in a van for a rehearsal space that Buckley’s band was renting. They were on the eve of recording material for the singer’s follow-up to his highly acclaimed debut Grace. For the past two months, Buckley, 30, [...]
Farewell, Phoebe Snow
Phoebe Snow left the earth this morning after complications from a brain hemorrhage she suffered in January, 2010. She was only 59. In that too-short life she helped define the ’70s singer-songwriter movement, and in 1972 gave us “Poetry Man,” the sultry Top 5 hit single that won her a Grammy nomination for Best New [...]
Herb Alpert’s “Whipped Cream” Cover Girl
Forty-six years ago this month Herb Alpert’s landmark Whipped Cream & Other Delights was released and went on to sell over six million copies—and its playful erotic cover with the whipped cream-covered Dolores Erickson launched as many male fantasies. A fashion model from the age of 14, Erickson appeared in magazines such as Vogue and [...]
Making a Difference: Marian Anderson, April 9, 1939
In 1939 celebrated African-American contralto Marian Anderson was denied rental of Washington, D.C.’s Constitutional Hall because of a segregation clause that only allowed concerts by white artists. Once this news circulated there was public outrage over the discrimination, and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt—among thousands of others—resigned membership from the Daughters of the American Revolution, which [...]
The Mysterious Death of Kurt Cobain
Seattle, April 8, 1994, 9 a.m. An electrician named Gary Smith arrived at Kurt Cobain’s home in Seattle to install a new security system. Though there was no answer at the front door, Smith got to work. As he climbed on the roof, following wires along the garage to a room above it, he looked [...]
The Sgt. Pepper’s Album Cover: Faces in the Crowd
As the definitive snapshot of ‘60s pop culture (taken on March 30, 1967 by Michael Cooper at Chelsea manor Photo Studios), artist Peter Blake’s Sgt. Pepper cover was unlike anything the world had ever seen. The result was a collage bursting with color, texture, intellectual diversity, comedy, tragedy and time compressed. Even today, shrunk down [...]
John Lennon and the FBI
The undercover agent was wearing a rumpled blazer and a false mustache. Posing as a reporter for an alternative newspaper, he was trying to blend in with the 15,000 hippies and students who’d turned out at Detroit’s Chrysler Arena on Dec. 10, 1971 for the “Free John Sinclair” concert, headlined by John Lennon. The agent [...]
Salute to Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductees
Tonight is the 26th annual induction ceremony into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and some of our favorite people are being honored: Alice Cooper (inducted by Rob Zombie); Neil Diamond (inducted by Paul Simon); Dr. John (inducted by John Legend); Darlene Love (inducted by Bette Midler); Tom Waits (inducted by Neil Young); Jac [...]
Troubadours: The Rise of the Singer-Songwriter
For those who delight in stories of what it was like to live a creative life during the golden eras of our musical heroes, you have a four-star treat in store. Troubadours: The Rise of the Singer-Songwriter, a documentary that centers around a West Hollywood venue that provided a nexus for the ’70s singer-songwriter movement, [...]
The Big Score: A Timeline of Movie Music
Composer Howard Shore, whose awards include three Oscars for scoring the Lord of the Rings triology, says, “I like to work around the edges and try to give the film another level of subtext, which is what music can do. I love painting around the corners of the frames and staying out of the middles. [...]
Buddy Holly’s Final Ed Sullivan Appearance
On January 26, 1958, Buddy Holly and the Crickets made their second and final appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show—this time earning the well-known wrath of the host. They were scheduled to perform their hit “Oh, Boy!,” but Sullivan told them to substitute it because he felt it was too raucous. You can imagine how [...]
The Beatles: ‘A Day In the Life’ 44 Years Ago
On the morning of Dec. 18, 1966, John Lennon read an article about Tara Browne, a 21-year old millionaire playboy—and friend of Paul McCartney’s—who had been killed in a car crash in London. Lennon started to tinker with chords, singing lines about “the lucky man who made the grade” who “blew his mind out in [...]
Paul McCartney: Nine Days In a Tokyo Jail
On Jan. 16, 1980, Paul McCartney and his wife Linda arrived at Tokyo International Airport for a week-long Japanese tour with Wings. But the tour ended before it began when a customs officer rummaging through their carry-on luggage lifted out a fist-sized bag of marijuana. “When the fellow pulled it out of the suitcase, he [...]
The Rolling Stones & Ed Sullivan
On January 15, 1967, the Rolling Stones made their fourth of six appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show. Even though Sullivan threatened that each time would be their last—whether it was because of the raucous audience or the band’s “untidy appearance” before insisting they wash their hair—this performance sent both Mick Jagger and poor Ed [...]
