Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today July 26
1943
Mick Jagger is born, the frontman who defined what the word means
On July 26, 1943, Mick Jagger was born in Dartford — an economics student who traded the London School of Economics for the stage. His mix of blues, sexual provocation and business cunning turned the Rolling Stones into rock's most durable corporation. Eight decades on he still sprints across stadiums: the body ages, the archetype he invented does not.
Mick Jagger
The Rolling Stones
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1938
Bobby Hebb is born, who wrote "Sunny" in the worst week of his life
On July 26, 1938, Bobby Hebb was born in Nashville, son of two blind musicians. In November 1963, a day apart, President Kennedy was assassinated and his own older brother was fatally stabbed outside a club. Hebb shut himself away and wrote "Sunny", a luminous song about being grateful for what is left. It has been recorded more than seven hundred times, and in 1966 it took him on tour as the Beatles' opening act.
Bobby Hebb
1944
Betty Davis is born: the woman who changed Miles Davis and was banned from radio
On July 26, 1944, Betty Mabry was born in North Carolina. She married Miles Davis in 1968 and within a year had introduced him to Sly Stone and Jimi Hendrix; the trumpeter's electric turn came out of that. As a solo artist she recorded a raw, explicit funk no station would play and religious groups boycotted. She retired in the late seventies, disappeared completely, and only in the past decade have her records been reissued as cult objects.
Betty Davis
Miles Davis
1949
Roger Taylor is born, Queen's drummer with the siren voice
On July 26, 1949, Roger Taylor was born in Norfolk — Queen's drummer and owner of the falsetto that crowns 'Bohemian Rhapsody'. Writer of 'Radio Ga Ga' and 'A Kind of Magic', he supplied both the band's most rocking side and its most pop one. His dry hit and high harmonies are as much a part of the Queen sound as May's guitar or Freddie's voice.
Roger Taylor
Queen
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1986
"Sledgehammer" hits number one and displaces the very band Gabriel had left
On July 26, 1986, "Sledgehammer" topped the American Hot 100, knocking Genesis's "Invisible Touch" off the summit: the group Peter Gabriel had walked out of eleven years earlier. It was the biggest commercial success of his solo career, driven by a stop-motion animated video that took a week to shoot and remains the most played in MTV's history.
Peter Gabriel
Genesis
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1990
Brent Mydland dies, the Grateful Dead's longest-serving keyboardist
On July 26, 1990, Brent Mydland, keyboardist of the Grateful Dead, was found dead at his home in Lafayette, California, from an overdose of cocaine and morphine. He was 37 and had closed the band's summer tour just three days earlier. Eleven years in the role made him the longest-serving keyboardist in a group haunted by that seat's curse: he was the third to die prematurely. His raspy voice and Hammond organ gave the eighties Dead a gospel soul fans still champion.
Brent Mydland
Grateful Dead
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1914
Erskine Hawkins is born, author of the tune that made somebody else famous
On July 26, 1914, Erskine Hawkins was born in Birmingham, Alabama — a trumpeter promoted as the twentieth-century Gabriel for his ease in the high register. In 1939 his orchestra recorded "Tuxedo Junction", named after the streetcar stop where his city's Black community danced. Glenn Miller covered it the following year and sold a million copies; the name that stuck to the song was Miller's, not his.
Erskine Hawkins
Glenn Miller
1940
Dobie Gray is born, who had two enormous hits eight years apart
On July 26, 1940, Lawrence Darrow Brown was born in Texas, grandson of sharecroppers. As Dobie Gray he landed "The 'In' Crowd" in 1965, an anthem of stylish youth that English mods adopted as their own. He then spent years trying without success to become an actor. In 1973 he returned with "Drift Away", a song about taking refuge in music that became a standard and plays more than ever on classic radio today.
Dobie Gray
1941
Darlene Love is born, the nameless voice of the wall of sound
On July 26, 1941, Darlene Wright, whom Phil Spector would rename Darlene Love, was born in Los Angeles. She sang lead on 'He's a Rebel', a number one credited to The Crystals, and for years her voice carried hits that bore other people's names. She recorded alongside Sam Cooke, Elvis and the Beach Boys, always from the shadows of the backing vocals. Her belated recognition, crowned by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, righted one of the great injustices of the Spector era.
Darlene Love
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1941
Brenton Wood is born: the soul singer Southern California never stopped dancing to
On July 26, 1941, Alfred Smith was born in Louisiana. He grew up in Compton and renamed himself Brenton Wood after the Brentwood district. In 1967 he landed "The Oogum Boogum Song" and "Gimme Little Sign" back to back, two light, contagious records the rest of the country soon forgot. In Southern California the opposite happened: the Chicano community adopted them and made them compulsory party repertoire for half a century.
Brenton Wood
1968
The Jackson 5 sign with Motown: five kids from Gary enter history
On July 26, 1968, three days after their Detroit audition, the Jackson 5 signed their first contract with Motown. Berry Gordy was betting on five brothers from Gary, Indiana, fronted by a nine-year-old prodigy named Michael. The gamble proved historic: their first four singles for the label ('I Want You Back', 'ABC', 'The Love You Save' and 'I'll Be There') all hit number one. That signature set in motion the career of the future king of pop.
The Jackson 5
Berry Gordy
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1982
"When the Tigers Broke Free": Waters sings to the father he never met
On July 26, 1982, "When the Tigers Broke Free" was released, written by Roger Waters for the film of "The Wall". The song recounts, with names and dates, the death of his father, Eric Fletcher Waters, at the battle of Anzio in 1944, when he was five months old, and includes the text of the official telegram his mother received. Waters had proposed it for the 1979 album and the rest of the band rejected it as too personal.
Pink Floyd
Roger Waters
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1993
Taylor Momsen is born: the teenage actress who left to play hard rock
On July 26, 1993, Taylor Momsen was born in St. Louis, Missouri. At two she was already working in advertising, and at fifteen she was a central character in a television series watched by millions of teenagers. She dropped it all to form The Pretty Reckless, a hard rock band the industry initially treated as a celebrity whim and which ended up putting four singles at number one on the American rock chart.
Taylor Momsen
The Pretty Reckless
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