Today's birthdays:
Tina Turner (1939-2023).
Tina Turner was a singer, songwriter and actress. Known as the "Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", she rose to prominence as the lead singer of the husband-wife duo Ike & Tina Turner before launching a successful career as a solo performer. She was recognized for her "swagger, sensuality, powerful gravelly vocals and unstoppable energy." In 1994 she began living in Kusnacht, Switzerland, and relinquished her American citizenship after obtaining Swiss citizenship in 2013.
Turner began her career with her ex-husband Ike Turner's band the Kings of Rhythm in 1956. Under the name Little Ann, she appeared on her first record, "Boxtop", in 1958. In 1960, she debuted as Tina Turner with the hit single "A Fool in Love". The Ike & Tina Turner Revue became "one of the most formidable live acts in history." The duo released hits such as "It's Gonna Work Out Fine", "River Deep – Mountain High", "Proud Mary", and "Nutbush City Limits", before disbanding in 1976.
In the 1980s, Turner launched "one of the greatest comebacks in music history." Her 1984 multi-platinum album Private Dancer contained the hit song "What's Love Got to Do with It", which won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and became her first and only number-one song on the Billboard Hot 100. At 44, she was the oldest female solo artist to top the Hot 100. Her chart success continued with "Better Be Good to Me", "Private Dancer", "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)", "Typical Male", "The Best", "I Don't Wanna Fight", and "GoldenEye". She embarked on the Break Every Rule World Tour (1987–1988), which became the top-grossing female tour of the 1980s and set a Guinness World Record for the then-largest paying audience in a concert (180,000).
Turner also acted in the films Tommy (1975) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). In 1986, she published her autobiography I, Tina: My Life Story, which was adapted for the 1993 film What's Love Got to Do with It. In 2009, Turner retired after completing her Tina!: 50th Anniversary Tour. In 2018, she was the subject of Tina, a jukebox musical.
Turner sold more than 100 million records worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling recording artists of all time. She received 12 Grammy Awards, which include eight competitive awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and three Grammy Hall of Fame inductions. She was the first black artist and first woman to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.Rolling Stone ranked her among the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. Turner has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice, with Ike Turner in 1991 and as a solo artist in 2021. She was also a 2005 recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors and Women of the Year award.
Rita Ora, 33.
Rita Sahatciu Orais a British singer and songwriter. She rose to prominence in February 2012 when she featured on DJ Fresh's single, "Hot Right Now", which reached number one in the UK. Her debut studio album, Ora, released in August 2012, debuted at number one in the United Kingdom. The album contained the UK number-one singles, "R.I.P." and "How We Do (Party)". Ora was the artist with the most number-one singles on the UK Singles Chart in 2012, with three singles reaching the top position.
Born in Pristina, modern-day Kosovo, Ora was named an Honorary Ambassador of Kosovo in 2015. Ora's second studio album, Phoenix, was released in November 2018. The lead single, "Your Song", reached the UK top ten, and the subsequent singles, "Anywhere" and "Let You Love Me", reached the top five in the UK. "Let You Love Me" made Ora the first British female solo artist to have thirteen top ten songs in the United Kingdom. She released her third studio album, You & I, in July 2023.
Natasha Bedingfield, 42.
Natasha Anne Bedingfield is a British singer and songwriter. She released her debut album, Unwritten, in 2004, which contained primarily up-tempo pop songs and was influenced by R&B music. It enjoyed international success with more than 2.3 million copies sold worldwide. Bedingfield received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for the title track "Unwritten", and at the 2005 and 2006 Brit Awards, she was nominated for Best British Female Artist. Unwritten also produced her only UK number one, "These Words".
Her second album, N.B. (2007), yielded the UK top 10 singles "I Wanna Have Your Babies" and "Soulmate". N.B. was not released in North America, but six tracks from it were included with seven new ones and released in 2008 under the name Pocketful of Sunshine, with the singles "Love Like This" and "Pocketful of Sunshine" earning success on the charts. In December 2010, Bedingfield released her third album in North America, Strip Me, with the song of the same name charting on the US Billboard Hot 100 at 91. Bedingfield has sold over 10 million albums and 10 million singles worldwide, totalling over 20 million records worldwide. In 2012, VH1 ranked Bedingfield number 66 on the list of 100 Greatest Women in Music.
On this day today:
1942 - Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premieres at the Hollywood Theatre in New York City. The World War II-era romance revives an old love song - "As Time Goes By" - and inspires the Al Stewart hit "Year of the Cat".
1945 - John McVie (bass guitarist for Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers) is born in Ealing, London, England.
1955 - Bill Haley's "Rock Around The Clock" becomes the first rock and roll record to hit #1 in the UK, thanks to its inclusion in the movie Blackboard Jungle.
1969 - John Lennon works on a Beatles song for the last time when he mixes "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" at Abbey Road Studios. The song is used as the B-side of their "Let It Be" single.
1971 - Yes release Fragile, their fourth album and first with keyboard player Rick Wakeman. It includes some of their most enduring songs, including "Long Distance Runaround" and "Roundabout."
1976 - The Sex Pistols release their debut single, "Anarchy in the U.K.," a blast of subversive punk rock that influences waves of British musicians.
1980 - The movie Rockshow, a documentary of Paul McCartney's 1976 "Wings Over America" tour, premieres in New York.
1983 - Quiet Riot's Metal Health hits #1 in America, becoming the first heavy metal album to reach the top spot. It's one of just six albums to top the chart in 1983, as Thriller (22 weeks) and Synchronicity (17 weeks) breathe most of the air.
1989 - MTV's acoustic showcase Unplugged premieres with an episode featuring Squeeze. Jules Shear hosts the first season.
1991 - Michael Jackson releases Dangerous, his eighth studio album.
1993 - U2 play shorthanded for the only time when bass player Adam Clayton misses a show in Sydney after blacking out from a bender (his tech, Stuart Morgan, fills in). When the tour ends two weeks later, Clayton goes to rehab and gives up alcohol.
1994 - Boyz II Men make it 14 weeks at #1 with "I'll Make Love To You," tying Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" for the longest-running #1 in Hot 100 history. The previous record was also held by Boyz II Men, with "End Of The Road" at #1 for 13 weeks.
1997 - The day after his album Sevens is released, Garth Brooks lands 12 of the 14 songs from the album on the Country singles chart. The previous record for most charting singles from an album was held by Brooks' Fresh Horses with eight tracks.
1999 - Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes issues a challenge to her TLC bandmates, proposing that they each make solo albums, with the winner determined by sales totals.
2001 - At the Queen's Royal Command Performance in London, Elton John, Cher and Donny Osmond perform.
2005 - Chris Brown, 16, dashes to #1 with his first single, "Run It!" He quickly becomes a superstar with gaudy sales numbers despite persistent legal problems.
2008 - Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy album fails to achieve massive first-week sales numbers, and Axl Rose points the finger at Dr. Pepper for not having honored its promise made back in March 2008, when the soda company had offered everybody in the US a free can of soda if Guns N' Roses released in 2008 the album which had been announced by Axl Rose for many years.
2008 - Atlantic Records becomes the first major label whose digital sales have surpassed its CD sales. Downloads of music and ringtones now account for more than half of Atlantic's US sales.
2010 - Duffy releases her second album, Endlessly, in the UK. Unlike her breakthrough debut Rockferry, it gets little attention, with no hit singles.
