Today in music history
• In 1820, John H. Hopkins, the author and composer of the Christmas hymn We Three Kings of Orient Are, was born.
• In 1936, country-rock musician and bandleader Charlie Daniels was born in Wilmington, N.C. He played guitar and fiddle on many Nashville sessions in the late 1960s, including appearances on Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline and Ringo Starr’s Beaucoup of Blues. In 1971, he formed the Charlie Daniels Band, patterned after the southern boogie of The Allman Brothers. Daniels’ commercial breakthrough came in 1979 with the multi-million-selling LP Million Mile Reflections. From it came the top-10 pop and country hit, The Devil Went Down to Georgia, which won the best country vocal Grammy Award.
• In 1956, Elvis Presley made his second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. He performed three songs – Hound Dog, Don’t Be Cruel and Love Me Tender.
• In 1961, a customer walked into Brian Epstein’s record store in Liverpool, England, and asked for a copy of My Bonnie by Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers. The Beat Brothers were actually The Beatles, and had recorded the song with Sheridan in Hamburg, West Germany. The request prompted Epstein to check out the group for himself, and he was surprised to discover that The Beatles were not German but one of the most popular bands in Liverpool. Within a month, he became their manager.
• In 1964, The TAMI Show, which some consider to be the best rock documentary of the 1960s, was filmed in Los Angeles. Among the performers were Chuck Berry, James Brown, The Rolling Stones and The Supremes. TAMI was supposed to stand for Teenage Awards Music International but there’s no record of any awards being presented.
In 1995, former Beatle Paul McCartney said in a London Daily Mail interview that he was bitter about living in the shadow of John Lennon.
• In 1972, the United States Council for World Affairs adopted The Who’s hit song, Join Together, as its theme.
• In 1977, Steve Perry joined Journey for their first public concert together, in San Francisco.
• In 1977, the Sex Pistols released their album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols in the U.S. It was released in the U.K. four days later.
• In 1986, Marie Osmond was married for a second time in a private Mormon Church ceremony in West Jordan, Utah. The 27-year-old singer was wed to Brian Blosil, a 33-year-old record producer. They announced their divorce in 2007. Osmond’s first marriage, in 1982, was to former Brigham Young University basketball star Stephen Craig. The couple separated in 1984 and were later divorced. But 26 years later, they remarried in May 2011, with Osmond wearing the same wedding dress she wore the first time around.
• In 1991, three members of Pink Floyd were injured in the Pan-American auto rally in Mexico. Guitarist Steve O’Rourke broke a leg, while guitarist Dave Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason suffered minor injuries. O’Rourke and Gilmour were taken to hospital but Mason continued in the race.
• In 1992, Irish singer Sinead O’Connor announced she was quitting pop music to study opera. Her statement followed a clash with her record company, Chrysalis, over whether her recording of Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina should be accompanied by a video. O’Connor did not want to do a video – the record company said the song would not be a hit without one.
• In 1994, Motown Records founder Berry Gordy told ABC interviewer Barbara Walters that he loved his major star, Diana Ross, but never married her because of the singer’s desire for stardom. Gordy also said that he did not know for years that he was the father of a child by Ross.
• In 1995, former Beatle Paul McCartney said in a London Daily Mail interview that he was bitter about living in the shadow of John Lennon. McCartney said he was more avant-garde and innovative than Lennon, who was shot to death in 1980. Lennon has been regarded as the most creative Beatle but McCartney said he was the driving force of the group.
• In 2009, Michael Jackson’s documentary chronicling his final days opened in Canada. This Is It was originally scheduled for a two week run, but after raking in $100 million worldwide in its first five days, Sony extended its run to at least four weeks. The film was built around footage of the King of Pop rehearsing for a planned series of 50 concerts at London’s O2 Arena. He died of cardiac arrest in Los Angeles on June 25, just weeks before his first concert was to take place. His personal physcian Conrad Murray was found guilty on involuntary manslaughter. He served less than two years in jail.