Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today May 12
1972
'Exile on Main St.': the Stones release their filthiest masterpiece
On May 12, 1972, the Rolling Stones released 'Exile on Main St.', the double album largely recorded in the damp basement of a French Riviera mansion, amid drugs, debts and tax exile. Critics received it lukewarmly; today there is consensus that this chaos of blues, gospel and country is their peak. Sometimes masterpieces sound like a collapse because they are one.
The Rolling Stones
1948
Steve Winwood is born, the prodigy who crossed every era of rock
On May 12, 1948, Steve Winwood was born in Birmingham; at 14 he was already singing like a soul veteran in the Spencer Davis Group. He founded Traffic, formed the supergroup Blind Faith with Clapton, and in the eighties reinvented himself as a sophisticated pop star. Few careers cross R&B, psychedelia and adult rock so naturally without losing class.
Steve Winwood
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