Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today July 27
1976
Lennon wins his battle against Nixon: the green card is finally his
On July 27, 1976, after four years of legal persecution driven by the Nixon administration, which considered him a political threat for his peace activism, John Lennon received his US permanent residency. 'It's great to be legal again', he joked to the press, card in hand. A musician had defeated a president's machinery. Literally.
John Lennon
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1927
Guy Carawan is born: the musician who handed "We Shall Overcome" to the movement
On July 27, 1927, Guy Carawan was born in California — a musicologist and singer working at an activist training school in Tennessee. In 1960, before the students founding the coordinating committee of the sit-ins, he taught an old church song with the words slightly altered and the tempo slowed. That afternoon "We Shall Overcome" stopped being a hymn and became the song of an entire generation.
Guy Carawan
1929
Harvey Fuqua is born: the man who taught Marvin Gaye the trade
On July 27, 1929, Harvey Fuqua was born in Louisville, leader of the Moonglows, one of the vocal groups that defined fifties doo-wop. When the group fell apart he recruited some young men from Washington to rebuild it; one of them was Marvin Gaye. Fuqua took him to Detroit, got him into Motown and taught him how to phrase and how to behave in a studio. He later produced Tammi Terrell and Sylvester, two more careers he effectively invented.
Harvey Fuqua
Marvin Gaye
The Moonglows
1942
Bobbie Gentry is born, the woman who wrote pop's most famous mystery and disappeared
On July 27, 1942, Bobbie Gentry was born in Mississippi — author of 'Ode to Billie Joe', the Southern enigma that knocked the Beatles off the charts in 1967 and never revealed what was thrown off the Tallahatchie Bridge. A pioneer as a songwriter and producer who owned her business, she retired in the eighties and never appeared in public again. Her silence is part of the work.
Bobbie Gentry
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1979
"Highway to Hell": AC/DC find their definitive sound and lose their singer
On July 27, 1979, "Highway to Hell" was released, AC/DC's sixth album and the first produced by Mutt Lange, who cleaned up their sound and taught them to build choruses without losing the grime. It was the record that took them out of Australian bars and onto radios worldwide. Seven months later Bon Scott was found dead in a car in London, aged 33.
AC/DC
Bon Scott
Mutt Lange
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1993
'Siamese Dream' arrives: the Smashing Pumpkins turn chaos into a masterpiece
On July 27, 1993, 'Siamese Dream', the Smashing Pumpkins' second album, hit US stores. Recorded amid internal crises, with Billy Corgan obsessively re-tracking nearly all the guitars and basses, the album stacked layers of distortion with a symphonic ambition foreign to grunge minimalism. 'Cherub Rock', 'Today' and 'Disarm' pushed it into the Billboard top ten and past six million copies. The chaos of its making became legend; the result, one of the great records of the nineties.
The Smashing Pumpkins
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1867
Enrique Granados is born, and dies at sea sailing home from his own premiere
On July 27, 1867, Enrique Granados was born in Lleida — a pianist and composer who turned Goya's paintings into music with the suite "Goyescas". In 1916 the Metropolitan in New York premiered his opera and President Wilson invited him to play at the White House, which made him miss his booked ship. He took another, crossing the English Channel; a German submarine torpedoed it and Granados died trying to save his wife.
Enrique Granados
1955
In late July 1955, Chess puts out "Maybellene" and Chuck Berry's career begins
In the last days of July 1955, the Chess label released "Maybellene", Chuck Berry's first single. He had come to Chicago from St. Louis, and it was Muddy Waters who told him which door to knock on. The song, a car chase told over a country tune accelerated into something else, entered the charts in August, reached number one on the rhythm and blues list and number five on the pop chart.
Chuck Berry
Chess Records
Muddy Waters
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1964
Rex Brown is born: the bass that held up the heaviest metal to reach the charts
On July 27, 1964, Rex Brown was born in Texas, Pantera's bassist since his teens, when the group still played glam with hairspray. The reinvention came in 1990 with "Cowboys from Hell" and detonated in 1994: "Far Beyond Driven" entered the United States album chart at number one, something no record that extreme had ever done. Brown was the only member who stayed out of the feud that destroyed the band.
Rex Brown
Pantera
1967
Juliana Hatfield is born, the fragile melody of Boston indie
On July 27, 1967, Juliana Hatfield, future figure of Boston's alternative rock scene, was born in Wiscasset, Maine. She passed through Blake Babies and The Lemonheads before shining with her own trio, delivering 'Become What You Are' in 1993 with the singles 'My Sister' and 'Spin the Bottle'. Her mix of girlish voice, sharp guitars and uncomfortably frank lyrics made her a beloved oddity of the alternative era. Three decades later she was still recording with the same stubborn independence.
Juliana Hatfield
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1968
"Magic Bus" comes out in the United States on a rhythm borrowed from Bo Diddley
On July 27, 1968, The Who released "Magic Bus" as a single in the United States and Canada; in the United Kingdom it did not appear until October. Pete Townshend had written it years earlier and the group dispatched it in the studio over Bo Diddley's rhythmic pattern, with claves and handclaps instead of the usual drum kit. Live it became an excuse to stretch it out for ten minutes, as captured at Woodstock and at Leeds.
The Who
Pete Townshend
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1974
"Annie's Song" hits number one, with a lyric written in ten minutes
On July 27, 1974, "Annie's Song" topped the American Hot 100. John Denver had written the whole thing in ten minutes, riding a chairlift in Aspen, after an argument with his wife and an afternoon of skiing that left him, by his own account, overwhelmed by the beauty of the place. The song has become a standard at weddings and funerals, and compulsory repertoire for flute players.
John Denver
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1976
Springsteen sues his manager: the battle that won his songs back
On July 27, 1976, in the hangover of 'Born to Run''s success, Bruce Springsteen sued his manager Mike Appel for fraud and breach of trust. The contracts he had signed as a rookie left him less than a tenth of his income and stripped him of the publishing rights to his own songs. The litigation kept him out of the studio for nearly a year, barred from recording with Jon Landau, until the May 1977 settlement. Out of that bitter passage came, hardened, 'Darkness on the Edge of Town'.
Bruce Springsteen
Mike Appel
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1981
"Bella Donna": Stevie Nicks proves she did not need Fleetwood Mac
On July 27, 1981, "Bella Donna" was released, Stevie Nicks's solo debut, recorded while Fleetwood Mac were going through their worst internal stretch. It reached number one in the United States and left two enormous hits: "Edge of Seventeen" and "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around", a duet with Tom Petty, who had handed the song over reluctantly. The album turned her shawl, her top hat and her tremulous voice into an identity of her own.
Stevie Nicks
Tom Petty
Fleetwood Mac
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1991
"Baby I'm Ready" crowns LeVert and confirms the surname counted twice
On July 27, 1991, "Baby I'm Ready" topped the rhythm and blues chart. LeVert was the group of Gerald and Sean Levert, sons of The O'Jays' singer, and had spent half a decade proving it did not depend on the family name. The song, a slow ballad built on keyboards and an enormous baritone, became a fixture of midnight radio and one of the peaks of early-nineties rhythm and blues.
LeVert
2004
"Live at Benaroya Hall": Pearl Jam sit down with no distortion to hide behind
On July 27, 2004, "Live at Benaroya Hall" was released, the live double capturing the acoustic concert Pearl Jam gave on October 22, 2003 at Seattle's symphony hall, in aid of a youth arts foundation. With no walls of guitar and no stage-diving, Eddie Vedder's voice and the bare songs were left exposed. The band put it out themselves and donated the proceeds.
Pearl Jam
Eddie Vedder
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