Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today July 10
1965
'Satisfaction' hits number one and the Stones become the kings of discontent
On July 10, 1965, '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' reached number one on the US Hot 100. Keith Richards's fuzz riff — literally dreamed up in a motel bed — and Jagger's consumerist rage defined the standard of what a rock single should be. With this song the Stones stopped chasing the Beatles and found their own throne.
The Rolling Stones
1939
Mavis Staples is born: the voice that scored the marches
On July 10, 1939, Mavis Staples was born in Chicago. She was singing with her father and siblings in southern churches when Martin Luther King invited them to travel with the movement. The Staple Singers moved from gospel into soul without changing their convictions and reached number one with "I'll Take You There". Bob Dylan proposed to her in the sixties and she said no. Sixty years on she was still making new records and winning Grammys.
Mavis Staples
The Staple Singers
1942
Sixto Rodriguez is born: the star who was famous without knowing it
On July 10, 1942, Sixto Rodriguez was born in Detroit to Mexican immigrant parents. He made two albums in the early seventies, sold nothing and went back to construction work for thirty years. What he never knew was that his songs had reached South Africa, where they had become anthems for the generation that opposed apartheid, selling platinum. In 2012 a documentary found him alive and had him filling stadiums at seventy.
Sixto Rodriguez
1942
Ronnie James Dio is born, the epic voice that gave metal its horns
On July 10, 1942, Ronnie James Dio was born in New Hampshire — metal's most operatic throat. From Rainbow to Black Sabbath to his own band, he sang dragons and rainbows with a conviction that made any verse epic. He also popularized the devil-horns gesture, learned from his Italian grandmother: the genre's universal salute came from his hands.
Ronnie James Dio
1969
Cheltenham bids farewell to Brian Jones, the Stone who founded the Stones
On July 10, 1969, Brian Jones was buried in the cemetery of his native Cheltenham, eight days after drowning in his swimming pool at 27. Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman attended the funeral, while Mick Jagger, pressured by the filming of 'Ned Kelly' in Australia, was absent. Jones had founded the Rolling Stones and given them their blues soul before being pushed out weeks before his death. His burial sealed one of British rock's saddest chapters.
Brian Jones
The Rolling Stones
1889
Noble Sissle is born: co-author of the musical that opened Broadway to Black artists
On July 10, 1889, Noble Sissle was born in Indianapolis — a lyricist and bandleader who in 1921 premiered "Shuffle Along" with Eubie Blake, the first musical written, composed, directed and performed entirely by Black artists to become a Broadway box-office hit. It produced "I'm Just Wild About Harry", and also the careers of Josephine Baker and Paul Robeson, who both started in its chorus.
Noble Sissle
Eubie Blake
1938
Lee Morgan is born: the trumpeter shot dead at his own gig
On July 10, 1938, Lee Morgan was born in Philadelphia. At eighteen he was already playing in Dizzy Gillespie's orchestra, and at twenty-five he recorded "The Sidewinder", a hit big enough to rescue the finances of the Blue Note label. Heroin cost him years of his career, and it was his partner who pulled him out of it. In February 1972, that same woman shot him between sets at a New York club. He was 33.
Lee Morgan
1947
Arlo Guthrie is born, folk heir and chronicler of 'Alice's Restaurant'
On July 10, 1947, Arlo Guthrie, son of the legendary Woody Guthrie, was born in Brooklyn. He inherited his father's craft of protest singing and storytelling and brought it to his own generation with 'Alice's Restaurant Massacree', an 18-minute sung monologue against the Vietnam draft that became a Thanksgiving anthem in the United States. His performance at Woodstock in 1969 consecrated him as a bridge between classic folk and the counterculture.
Arlo Guthrie
1954
Neil Tennant is born: the journalist who left the magazine to make the records
On July 10, 1954, Neil Tennant was born in the north of England. He reached thirty working as an editor at Smash Hits magazine — interviewing pop stars rather than being one. He had met Chris Lowe in a London electronics shop, and together they built Pet Shop Boys, a duo that sings about money, class and desire without ever changing expression. They have been doing it for forty years without repeating themselves.
Neil Tennant
Pet Shop Boys
1979
Chuck Berry sentenced over taxes: the pioneer returns to prison
On July 10, 1979, Chuck Berry was sentenced to four months in prison for evading federal taxes on his 1973 earnings. The architect of rock and roll, famous for demanding cash payment before every show, served his time at Lompoc prison in California and completed a thousand hours of community service by playing benefit concerts. The sentence came barely a month after he performed at the White House for Jimmy Carter, one of the cruelest ironies of his career.
Chuck Berry
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