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Prep-Today in Music History-Aug. 15(Canadian Press Broadcast Wire (Canada) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Today is August 15th: In 1925, jazz pianist Oscar Peterson was born in Montreal. Peterson began playing on Montreal radio stations and with local dance bands in the early 1940's. In 1949, he made a sensational Carnegie Hall debut as a surprise guest at ``Jazz at the Philharmonic'' concert. Peterson formed the first of his famous trios in 1951. By the end of the decade, he was one of the best known jazz musicians in the world through his recordings and personal appearances. His version of ``Tenderly'' was especially popular. Peterson, also a composer, is best-known for his extended Canadiana Suite. He died on Dec. 23, 2007 at age 82. In 1933, country singer Bobby Helms was born in Bloomington, Indiana. His 1957 recording of ``Jingle Bell Rock'' is a perennial favourite at Christmas time. Helms' other hits from the late '50's include ``My Special Angel'' and ``Fraulein.'' He died at his home in Martinsville, Indiana on June 19th, 1997. In 1946, songwriter Jimmy Webb was born in Elk City, Oklahoma. Webb's songs, such as ``By the Time I Get to Phoenix'' and ``Up, Up and Away'' made him a (m) millionaire by the time he was 21. Glen Campbell had a hit with ``Phoenix,'' as well as Webb's ``Wichita Lineman'' and ``Galveston,'' and the Fifth Dimension made ``Up, Up and Away'' a (m) million-seller. ``Up, Up and Away'' also won Webb a Grammy Award in 1967 for best song. In 1956, Canadian contralto Kathleen Howard, a native of Niagara Falls, Ont., died in Hollywood at the age of 76. She spent 12 seasons with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, beginning in 1916. Howard retired as a singer in 1928, later taking character parts in movies and working as a journalist. In 1958, singer Buddy Holly married Maria Elena Santiago in a private ceremony at Holly's parents' home in Lubbock, Texas. Holly died in a plane crash the following February. In 1965, ``The Beatles'' played before a capacity crowd of 55-thousand at Shea Stadium in New York, setting a record, at the time, for the largest concert audience. In 1969, the Woodstock Music and Arts Fair began on Max Yasgur's farm near Woodstock, New York. Over the next three days, more than 400-thousand people turned out to hear more than 30 acts, including Jimi Hendrix, the ``Grateful Dead,'' Janis Joplin, ``The Who,'' Joan Baez and ``Jefferson Airplane.'' The festival became a symbol for the peaceful lifestyle championed by the youth of the day. The festival's legend was spread by a movie of the event and two albums of Woodstock's music. In 1970, Charles Manson signed with the E-S-P label to record an album called ``Lie.'' The L-P was meant to pay for some of his legal expenses. In 1971, one-hit wonder Thomas Wayne was killed in a car crash at age 31. His only hit, ``Tragedy,'' made the Top Five in 1959. (Note for trivia buffs: The record was produced by Elvis Presley's former guitarist, Scotty Moore.) In 1975, New York radio station WNEW-FM broadcast live a Bruce Springsteen concert from the Bottom Line nightclub. In 1979, Bob Dylan's album ``Slow Train Coming'' was released amid reports that Dylan had converted to Christianity. The L-P contained several specific religious references. In 1980, George Harrison's autobiography, ``I, Me Mine,'' was published privately in London. Copies went for 148 pounds (then about 400 dollars) apiece. A mass market edition of the book was published two years later. In 1981, Stevie Wonder gave his gold L-P for ``Hotter Than July'' to Tami Ragoway of Los Angeles. Ragoway's boyfriend had been killed in a holdup at a hamburger joint while the couple was returning from a Wonder concert. In 1984, Norman Petty, the man who produced Buddy Holly's records, died at 57. Petty ran a recording studio in Clovis, New Mexico, about 150 kilometres west of Holly's hometown of Lubbock, Texas. Holly and his band, ``The Crickets,'' went to Petty's studio in February 1957 and recorded ``That'll Be the Day,'' which became Holly's first hit. For the next 18 months, Petty produced all of Holly's records, but Holly parted company with both Petty and ``The Crickets'' in October 1958. Petty was about to sue Holly when the singer was killed in a plane crash on February 3rd, 1959. In 1986, six hours after emergency surgery on his vocal chords, the lead singer of the Norwegian pop group ``A-ha'' wowed a packed audience at the Expo Theatre in Vancouver. Using a local anesthetic, doctors at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver had removed a three-centimetre cyst from Morton Harket's throat. In 1987, 15- to 20-thousand ``Dead Heads'' jammed the small Colorado community of Telluride for two ``Grateful Dead'' concerts that required approval in a municipal referendum. Opponents had charged that the shows would be detrimental to Telluride's small-town atmosphere. In 1987, a crowd estimated at 80-thousand jammed a park in the northern English industrial city of Leeds for Madonna's first British concert. Many fans waited 12 hours for the show to start and there was some rowdiness as impatience grew. Police reported 60 arrests. In 1987, Peter Shidlof, viola player with the world's longest surviving string ensemble, ``The Amadeus Quartet,'' died in northwestern England at 65. It was announced a few days later that the quartet would disband. In 1990, Lew DeWitt, former ``Statler Brothers'' tenor and guitarist, died at his home in Waynesboro, Virginia at 52. He died of an intestinal disorder which had forced him to leave the country group in 1982 after more than 18 years. DeWitt wrote one of the ``Statlers''' biggest hits, ``Flowers On the Wall,'' a 1965 (m) million-seller. In 1991, an estimated 750-thousand people jammed into New York's Central Park for a free concert by Paul Simon. The two-hour-plus concert also was broadcast live on cable television and simulcast on 200 radio stations. Simon closed the show with a solo version of one of his hit duets with Art Garfunkel, ``Sounds of Silence.'' Garfunkel later complained to the New York Times that he wasn't ``good enough to be invited.'' In 1996, country singer Shania Twain was honoured at a homecoming in the northern Ontario town of Timmins. The former Timmins resident was presented with the key to the city, pressed her hands into cement and was shown a plaque renaming the city's Algonquin Boulevard to Shania Twain Way. Twain became an international star after her 1995 album ``The Woman in Me'' sold more than eight- (m) million copies. In 1996, a women's shelter on Long Island, New York, refused to accept money from a benefit concert featuring James Brown. The shelter said Brown's wife had accused him of assaulting her, although each time she withdrew the accusations or the charges were dismissed. In 1997, an appeals court in San Francisco said two original members of ``Creedence Clearwater Revival'' could use the Creedence name. The band's former leader, John Fogerty, had objected to Doug Clifford and Stu Cook calling their new group ``Creedence Clearwater Revisited.'' In 1998, ``Deep Purple'' singer Ian Gillan bopped a security guard on the head with a microphone during a concert in Pontiac, Michigan. The guard said he was trying to move an unruly fan from near the stage. Gillan was charged with assault and battery. In 2008, legendary record producer Jerry Wexler died at age 91. He helped shape R-and-B music with influential recordings of Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and other greats, and later made key recordings with the likes of Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. (The Canadian Press) (c) 2009 The Canadian Press |