Today's birthdays:
John Coghlan, 77.
John Robert Coghlan is an English musician, best known as the original drummer of the rock band Status Quo.
John Coghlan joined Status Quo, then called The Scorpions (latterly The Spectres), in early 1962 after a meeting with bassist Alan Lancaster, guitarist Francis Rossi and keyboard player Jess Jaworski. "The three of them were playing away through a single Vox AC30 amplifier," he recalled. "But it sounded amazing and that was the start of it all."
Coghlan played on the first fourteen Quo albums, including their first and most successful live album, Live! in 1977, and songs such as "Caroline", "Down Down", "Rockin' All Over the World" and "Whatever You Want".
Goldie, 58.
Clifford Joseph Price, better known as Goldie, is a British music producer and DJ.
Initially gaining exposure for his work as a graffiti artist, Goldie became well known for his pioneering role as a musician in the 1990s UK jungle, drum and bass and breakbeat hardcore scenes. He released a variety of singles under the pseudonym Rufige Kru and co-founded the label Metalheadz. He later released several albums under his own name, including the 1995 album Timeless, which entered the UK charts at number 7.
His first studio album, Timeless, followed in 1995. Timeless entered the UK Albums Chart at number seven. The album fused the breakbeats and basslines common in jungle with orchestral textures and soul vocals by Diane Charlemagne. The album's title track was a 21-minute symphonic piece. "Inner City Life", a track from the album, reached number 39 in the UK Singles Chart. Timeless helped to popularise drum and bass as a form of musical expression.The music critic Simon Reynolds noted that Price's credentials as a musical innovator—and particularly as one of the key driving forces of innovation in the jungle/breakbeat scene—were exceptional. "Goldie revolutionised jungle not once but thrice", he noted in The Wire magazine, continuing, "First there was 'Terminator' (pioneering the use of time stretching), then 'Angel' (fusing Diane Charlemagne's live vocal with David Byrne/Brian Eno samples to prove that hardcore could be more 'conventionally' musical), now there's 'Timeless', a 22-minute hardcore symphony.
Nile Rodgers, 71.
Nile Gregory Rodgers Jr. is an American record producer, guitarist, and composer. The co-founder of Chic has written, produced, and performed on records that have sold more than 500 million albums and 75 million singles worldwide. He is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee, and the recipient of six Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement/Special Merit Award. Known for his chucking guitar style, in 2014 Rolling Stone wrote that "the full scope of Nile Rodgers' career is still hard to fathom".
Formed as the Big Apple Band in 1972 with bassist Bernard Edwards, Chic released their self-titled debut album in 1977, including the hit singles "Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)" and "Everybody Dance". The 1978 album C'est Chic produced the hits "I Want Your Love" and "Le Freak", with the latter selling more than seven million singles worldwide. The song "Good Times" from the 1979 album Risque was a number one single on the pop and soul charts, and became one of the most-sampled songs of all time, "ushering in" hip-hop via the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight".
With Edwards, Rodgers wrote and produced music for other artists, including the songs "He's the Greatest Dancer" and "We Are Family" for Sister Sledge and "I'm Coming Out" and "Upside Down" for Diana Ross. After Chic's breakup in 1983, Rodgers produced several major albums and singles for other artists, including David Bowie's Let's Dance, "Original Sin" by INXS, Duran Duran's "The Reflex" and "Notorious", and Madonna's "Like a Virgin". He later worked with artists including The B-52s, Jeff Beck, Mick Jagger, Grace Jones, The Vaughan Brothers, Bryan Ferry, Christina Aguilera, Lady Gaga, and Daft Punk, winning three Grammy Awards in 2014 for his work on their album Random Access Memories.
On this day today:
1958 - Elvis Presley sails for West Germany with the US Army.
1960 - Chubby Checker's version of "The Twist" goes to #1 in America, while the original version by Hank Ballard & The Midnighters reaches its peak chart position of #28. Checker's version tops the chart again in 1962.
1968 - Barbra Streisand transitions from Broadway to the big screen in her first film role as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl. The singer, who originated the part on stage, wins the Oscar for Best Actress, sharing the title with Katharine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter.
1970 - Diana Ross, after leaving The Supremes, gets her first #1 solo hit with "Ain't No Mountain High Enough."
1973 - Gram Parsons of The Byrds dies at age 26 after taking a shot of liquid morphine in his room at Joshua Tree Inn. Parsons had been recovering from drug and alcohol addiction, but relapsed during his trip to Joshua Tree National Park. "He was clean and took a strong shot," his friend Keith Richards says. "It's the one mistake you don't want to make."
1981 - Thanks to MTV airplay for the lead single "Start Me Up," the Rolling Stones album Tattoo You goes to #1 in America, where it stays for nine weeks. It's their last #1 album in the US.
1981 - Simon & Garfunkel reunite for a free concert in New York's Central Park.
1984 - At a whistle-stop in Hammonton, New Jersey, campaigning president Ronald Reagan praises singer Bruce Springsteen, saying: "America's future rests in a thousand dreams inside your hearts; it rests in the message of hope in songs so many young Americans admire: New Jersey's own Bruce Springsteen. And helping you make those dreams come true is what this job of mine is all about." This leads to widespread criticism in the press because Springsteen's recent hit, "Born In The U.S.A.," is in fact a bitter cry of outrage at how poorly the United States treats its veterans, which Reagan had apparently mistaken for a straight-forward patriotic anthem - an easy mistake to make if you listen to the chorus only and not the lyrics.
1985 - Frank Zappa, John Denver and Dee Snider of Twisted Sister testify at a Senate hearing where the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) argue for a ratings system on music. The musicians explain that this is censorship, but the PMRC wins a victory and warning labels are ordered on albums containing explicit lyrics.
1987 - The Grateful Dead hit #10 on the US Hot 100 with "Touch Of Grey," the only hit song for the band.
1987 - Michael Jackson's duet with Siedah Garrett, "I Just Can't Stop Loving You," hits #1, becoming the first of five singles from the Bad album to top the chart.
1988 - Erasure release "A Little Respect."
1990 - Eddie Vedder is selected as lead vocalist of what will become Pearl Jam after Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard and Mike McCready hear his demo tape where he added vocals to three instrumental tracks the band had recorded.
1991 - Michael Jackson is a guest voice on The Simpsons, where he plays a mental patient Homer befriends named Leon Kompowsky.
1997 - The pitch-correction software Auto-Tune hits the market and soon becomes ubiquitous in recording studios, especially after Cher hits #1 with her Auto-Tuned "Believe."
1997 - The VH1 show Storytellers airs live for the first time with an episode featuring Elton John from the House of Blues in New Orleans.
1999 - The Dixie Chicks become the first country group to top the Billboard albums chart when Fly debuts at #1.
2003 - A week after his death at the age of 71, country legend Johnny Cash is bestowed with artist, song and album of the year awards at the Americana Music Awards ceremony in Nashville. Cash wins Song of the Year for his cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" and Album of the Year for American IV: The Man Comes Around, the fourth in a series produced by Rick Rubin.
2005 - Fergie, along with her group The Black Eyed Peas, appears on the "Viva Las Vegas" episode of Las Vegas, where she meets the show's star, Josh Duhamel. They get married in 2009.
2008 - Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and DJ AM are seriously injured when the plane they are riding in hurtles off the end of a runway in South Carolina and hits a highway embankment.
2008 - Ten years after getting arrested for lewd behavior in a Los Angeles public bathroom, George Michael is arrested on drug charges in a restroom north of London. "I want to apologize to my fans for screwing up again, and to promise them I'll sort myself out," the singer says. "And to say sorry to everybody else, just for boring them."
2012 - The Dave Matthews Band sees their album Away From the World debut at #1 on the Billboard albums chart. This continues the band's unbroken winning streak of six #1 albums on the Billboard 200.
2012 - Fiona Apple is arrested when her tour bus is stopped in the West Texas town of Sierra Blanca, the same place where Willie Nelson and Snoop Dogg were previously busted. Border patrol agents find four grams of hash on the bus, which Apple says is hers. She spends a night in jail before being released on bail.
