Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today July 13
1985
Live Aid: the day rock believed it could feed the world
On July 13, 1985, Live Aid connected Wembley and Philadelphia before nearly two billion viewers to raise funds against famine in Ethiopia. Queen delivered the most-cited twenty minutes in concert history and U2 were consecrated globally. Whatever the debates about its real legacy, it was the high-water mark of faith in the power of rock.
Queen
U2
David Bowie
1942
Roger McGuinn is born, the twelve strings that made folk fly
On July 13, 1942, Roger McGuinn was born in Chicago — leader of The Byrds and owner of the most imitated twelve-string Rickenbacker sound in history. By electrifying Dylan on 'Mr. Tambourine Man' he invented folk-rock, and with 'Eight Miles High' he opened the psychedelic door. From R.E.M. to Tom Petty, half of American guitar descends from his crystalline chime.
Roger McGuinn
The Byrds
1971
MF DOOM is born: the rapper who put on a mask to stop being a person
On July 13, 1971, Daniel Dumile was born in London and raised on Long Island. His first group collapsed when his brother and rhyme partner was killed by a car in 1993, and he disappeared for several years. He returned with a metal mask modelled on a comic-book villain, the name MF DOOM and a way of rhyming full of detours and buried words that became a religion for half a generation. He died in 2020 and his family announced it two months later.
MF DOOM
1973
Queen's debut album: the legend began in dead studio hours
On July 13, 1973, Queen's first album was released in the UK, recorded largely during the free overnight hours that Trident Studios lent the band. The self-titled record, with 'Keep Yourself Alive' as its calling card, went almost unnoticed by the press and the charts. Yet it already carried the band's DNA: Brian May's layered guitars, ambitious vocal harmonies and Freddie Mercury's theatrical voice. Few debuts so ignored at the time ended up sustaining such a colossal career.
Queen
2003
Compay Segundo dies at 95, six years after becoming famous worldwide
On July 13, 2003, Francisco Repilado — Compay Segundo — died in Havana at 95. He had spent much of his life as a respected musician in Cuba and as a cigar roller when the Buena Vista Social Club project pulled him out of retirement in 1996 and took him to Carnegie Hall. His "Chan Chan" opens that album and became the most recognisable Cuban song on earth. He went out working, with tours booked to the end.
Compay Segundo
Buena Vista Social Club
1936
Albert Ayler is born: the saxophonist who played hymns as though they were burning
On July 13, 1936, Albert Ayler was born in Cleveland, the most extreme figure in free jazz. He took simple melodies — military marches, religious hymns, nursery songs — and blew them apart with a saxophone sound closer to a scream. Coltrane admired him and asked him to play at his funeral. Four years later, in 1970, Ayler's body was found in New York's East River; what happened was never established.
Albert Ayler
1966
Gerald Levert is born: the son who competed with his father as an equal
On July 13, 1966, Gerald Levert was born in Cleveland, son of Eddie Levert, the voice of The O'Jays. Rather than live in the shadow, he formed his own group at twenty and strung together rhythm and blues hits for two decades with a baritone deeper than his father's. They eventually recorded a duet album together. He died in 2006, aged 40, from an accidental combination of prescription drugs.
Gerald Levert
The O'Jays
1985
On Live Aid day, Duran Duran made history twice over
On July 13, 1985, while the world watched Live Aid, Duran Duran's 'A View to a Kill' hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100. It thus became the only James Bond theme ever to top that chart, a record no other song in the franchise had achieved. Irony had it that the band played in Philadelphia that very day what would be their last show with the classic lineup for almost two decades. An absolute peak and a farewell, all on a single date.
Duran Duran
1989
Leon Bridges is born: the dishwasher who sounded like a 1962 record
On July 13, 1989, Leon Bridges was born in Texas. He washed dishes in a Fort Worth restaurant and played open mics dressed in sixties second-hand clothes. A musician spotted him, offered to record him to analogue tape with period instruments, and the result sounded so much like Sam Cooke it was hard to believe the date. A year later he was Grammy-nominated, and over time he loosened into a far more contemporary soul.
Leon Bridges
2004
Arthur Kane: dying 22 days after living the reunion dream
On July 13, 2004, Arthur 'Killer' Kane, founding bassist of the New York Dolls, died at 55 from a leukemia diagnosed barely two hours before his death. Only 22 days had passed since the band's reunion at London's Meltdown festival, the comeback Kane had waited three decades for. His story, from proto-punk pioneer to Mormon librarian picking up his bass again, was captured in the documentary 'New York Doll'. Few rock farewells were so cruel and so complete at once.
Arthur Kane
New York Dolls
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