Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today July 9
1946
Bon Scott is born, the roguish grin that launched AC/DC
On July 9, 1946, Ronald Belford 'Bon' Scott was born in Scotland, emigrating as a child to Australia, where he would become AC/DC's voice and mischief. From 'Highway to Hell' to 'Let There Be Rock', his moonshine vocals and barroom lyrics defined the mold of the hard rock singer. He died in 1980, just before total glory, leaving a standard nobody has matched.
Bon Scott
AC/DC
1947
Haruomi Hosono is born: the Japanese musician early New York DJs plundered
On July 9, 1947, Haruomi Hosono was born in Tokyo — a bassist who in 1978 founded Yellow Magic Orchestra intending to make electronic music that mocked the exotic image the West held of Japan. The joke landed backwards: the records reached New York, Afrika Bambaataa and the first hip-hop DJs played them relentlessly, and those programmed rhythms ended up underpinning electro and Detroit techno.
Haruomi Hosono
Yellow Magic Orchestra
1964
Courtney Love is born, the perfect storm of nineties rock
On July 9, 1964, Courtney Love was born in San Francisco — Hole's leader and one of grunge's most brilliant and polarizing figures. 'Live Through This', released days after Kurt Cobain's death, remains one of the decade's most ferocious albums. Loved and vilified in equal measure, she embodied without filter the contradictions rock demands of its women.
Courtney Love
Hole
1988
"Paradise" takes Sade to number one with the calmest music of the decade
On July 9, 1988, "Paradise" topped Billboard's soul chart — an unlikely feat for a British band that played in half light at half everyone else's volume. Sade Adu had come from fashion design and sang without ever raising her voice, carried by a saxophone and a bass that left air everywhere. The industry had no idea how to file them and the audience did not need anyone to: they sold tens of millions of records.
Sade
1995
The last trip: Grateful Dead close their story with Jerry Garcia in Chicago
On July 9, 1995, the Grateful Dead played Chicago's Soldier Field before more than 60,000 people, closing a troubled summer tour. It was, unbeknownst to anyone, the band's last concert with Jerry Garcia, who battled equipment problems all night and closed singing 'Black Muddy River'. Garcia died exactly one month later, on August 9. With him ended three decades of American psychedelia's longest communal experiment.
Grateful Dead
Jerry Garcia
1929
Lee Hazlewood is born: the moustachioed producer who set Nancy Sinatra walking
On July 9, 1929, Lee Hazlewood was born in Oklahoma — a producer of extravagant taste who first invented the cavernous echo on Duane Eddy's guitars and later wrote "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" for Nancy Sinatra. The direction he gave her in the studio is famous: sing it like a sixteen-year-old girl who dates forty-year-old men. It sold millions, after which he moved to Sweden to make strange records on his own terms.
Lee Hazlewood
Nancy Sinatra
1946
Mitch Mitchell is born, the drummer who flew at Hendrix's altitude
On July 9, 1946, John 'Mitch' Mitchell, drummer of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was born in London. He won the job in 1966 on a coin toss against Aynsley Dunbar, and his torrential, jazz-schooled style proved the perfect counterweight to Hendrix's revolutionary guitar. He played on all three Experience studio albums and entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. Rolling Stone ranked him among the ten greatest drummers of all time.
Mitch Mitchell
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
1957
Marc Almond is born, and rescues a forgotten song into permanence
On July 9, 1957, Marc Almond was born in Southport, England. At Leeds art school he formed Soft Cell with a classmate and a cheap synthesizer. In 1981 they recorded "Tainted Love", a 1964 soul number by Gloria Jones that had sold nothing, and stripped it down to two notes and a heartbeat. It went to number one in seventeen countries. Almond then pursued a career in dark cabaret that never tried to repeat the hit.
Marc Almond
Soft Cell
Gloria Jones
1959
Jim Kerr is born, the Scot who made stadiums sing
On July 9, 1959, Jim Kerr, founder and vocalist of Simple Minds, was born in Glasgow. Emerging from Scottish post-punk, the band evolved toward epic stadium rock that conquered the world in the eighties with 'Don't You (Forget About Me)', a US number one thanks to the film 'The Breakfast Club'. With anthems like 'Alive and Kicking' and 'Belfast Child', Simple Minds surpassed 60 million records sold. Kerr still fronts the band almost five decades later.
Jim Kerr
Simple Minds
1975
Jack White is born: the Detroit upholsterer who revived two-person rock
On July 9, 1975, John Gillis was born in Detroit, the youngest of ten children. He worked as an upholsterer before starting The White Stripes with his ex-wife and introducing her in public as his sister. The band had a guitar and a drum kit, three colours and no concessions: no bass, no synthesizers, everything recorded to tape. With "Seven Nation Army" he ended up writing the most universal stadium chant of the century, without meaning to.
Jack White
The White Stripes
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