Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today July 23
2011
Amy Winehouse dies at 27: the talent we failed to protect
On July 23, 2011, Amy Winehouse was found dead at her Camden home from alcohol poisoning, at 27. 'Back to Black' had returned classic soul to the center of pop with brutal honesty, while the tabloids turned her decline into daily spectacle. Her entry into the 27 Club forced the industry to look in the mirror. Not for long.
Amy Winehouse
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1920
Amália Rodrigues is born: the voice Portugal declared national mourning for
On July 23, 1920, Amália Rodrigues was born in Lisbon. She sold fruit on the docks before becoming the voice of fado and the only cultural ambassador Portugal exported for half a century. She sang of saudade with her head thrown back and a black shawl that became her uniform. When she died in 1999 the government declared three days of national mourning and suspended the election campaign then under way.
Amália Rodrigues
1965
Slash is born, rock's most famous top hat
On July 23, 1965, Saul Hudson was born in London, raised in Los Angeles and universally known as Slash. His Les Paul on 'Sweet Child o' Mine' and 'November Rain' defined late-eighties guitar sound: dirty blues, epic melody and back-alley attitude. With the curls, top hat and cigarette, he also created a silhouette that works as a logo all by itself.
Slash
Guns N' Roses
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1965
A cry for help disguised as a hit: The Beatles release 'Help!'
On July 23, 1965, the single 'Help!' was released in the UK, with 'I'm Down' on the B-side, previewing The Beatles' film and album of the same name. Beneath its radiant energy, John Lennon hid a literal confession: years later he admitted the song was a genuine cry for help amid the whirlwind of Beatlemania. The single went straight to number one on both sides of the Atlantic. Rarely had pop disguised anguish as celebration so well.
The Beatles
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1969
"Honky Tonk Women" tops the British chart, the last time the Stones manage it at home
On July 23, 1969, "Honky Tonk Women" was at the top of the United Kingdom singles chart. It had gone on sale on July 4, a day after Brian Jones was found dead in his swimming pool, and it is the first Rolling Stones record with Mick Taylor on guitar. That dirty riff, opened by a cowbell, stayed five weeks at the summit and remains the band's last British number one at home.
The Rolling Stones
Mick Taylor
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1988
"Don't Be Cruel" crowns Bobby Brown and confirms new jack swing
On July 23, 1988, "Don't Be Cruel" reached number one on the rhythm and blues chart. Bobby Brown was nineteen, had been thrown out of New Edition for indiscipline and had watched his first solo album fail. He came back with Teddy Riley and L.A. Reid producing, an aggressive dance style and an attitude the industry found difficult and the public found irresistible. The album sold more than twelve million copies.
Bobby Brown
1943
Tony Joe White is born: the swamp man who wrote "Rainy Night in Georgia"
On July 23, 1943, Tony Joe White was born in Louisiana, son of cotton sharecroppers. He played a dirty guitar and half-spoke stories of the deep South. "Polk Salad Annie", from 1969, gave him a hit of his own and gave Elvis Presley one of the strongest numbers of his Las Vegas years. That same year he wrote "Rainy Night in Georgia", which in Brook Benton's voice became an eternal soul standard.
Tony Joe White
Brook Benton
1961
Martin Gore is born, Depeche Mode's architect in the shadows
On July 23, 1961, Martin Gore was born in London — Depeche Mode's main songwriter and creative soul. When Vince Clarke left the band after the first album, Gore took up the pen and steered it from synth-pop innocence to the monumental darkness of 'Violator' and 'Songs of Faith and Devotion'. His songs about faith, desire and guilt turned a group from Basildon into a worldwide stadium act. Few writers have done as much to give electronic music emotional depth.
Martin Gore
Depeche Mode
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1971
Alison Krauss is born: the bluegrass fiddler with more Grammys than almost anyone
On July 23, 1971, Alison Krauss was born in Illinois. At fourteen she was already winning fiddle contests and at sixteen she signed to a bluegrass label. Her clear voice and her band, Union Station, took the genre out of the rural circuit and onto the sales charts. In 2007 she recorded "Raising Sand" with Robert Plant, an improbable album that won five Grammys including album of the year, leaving her among the most decorated artists in history.
Alison Krauss
Robert Plant
1971
Mr. Dalvin is born, one of four gospel boys who made rhythm and blues dirty
On July 23, 1971, Dalvin DeGrate was born in North Carolina, one of the two pairs of brothers who formed Jodeci. They came from singing in churches and arrived in New York in suits; the label reinvented them in combat boots with the attitude of a rap crew. With "Forever My Lady" they invented a way of singing ballads in a pulpit voice over street beats — the formula later used by Usher, R. Kelly and all of nineties rhythm and blues.
Mr. Dalvin
Jodeci
1980
Farewell to Keith Godchaux, pianist of the Dead's golden era
On July 23, 1980, Keith Godchaux died at 32 from injuries sustained in a car accident in California. He had been Grateful Dead's pianist between 1971 and 1979, the era of 'Europe '72' and some of the band's most celebrated improvisations. Alongside his wife Donna, he joined San Francisco's psychedelic family until the wear of the road pushed them out of the group. Fate added a cruel calendar wink: he had also been born on a July 19.
Keith Godchaux
Grateful Dead
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1986
"You Give Love a Bad Name" and the formula that saved Bon Jovi from vanishing
On July 23, 1986, "You Give Love a Bad Name" went on sale. Bon Jovi were coming off two weak albums and the label had made clear this was the last chance. They called in Desmond Child, a professional songwriter the band eyed with suspicion, and out of that session came the riff, the chorus and the structure that defined eighties radio hard rock. The album "Slippery When Wet" sold more than twenty million.
Bon Jovi
Desmond Child
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