Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today August 29
1966
Candlestick Park: the Beatles play their last concert and nobody announces it
On August 29, 1966, the Beatles played 33 minutes at San Francisco's Candlestick Park. Only they knew it was the end: fed up with inaudible tours and threats, they had secretly decided never to return to the stage. McCartney asked to record the show on a home camera, like someone keeping a souvenir. The biggest band in the world retired from live performance four years into its fame.
The Beatles
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1958
Michael Jackson is born, the kid from Gary who became the King of Pop
On August 29, 1958, Michael Jackson was born in Gary, Indiana — seventh child of a working-class family, fronting the Jackson 5 by age 11. With 'Thriller' he made the best-selling album in history and redefined the music video, dance and pop ambition. His later life gathered as much shadow as glory, but his influence remains the measure of every pop artist.
Michael Jackson
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1970
'War' hits number one: Motown finally dares to say it out loud
On August 29, 1970, Edwin Starr's 'War' was number one in the United States. The Temptations had recorded it first, but Motown wouldn't release it as a single for fear of damaging the group's image with an openly anti-Vietnam song. So they gave it to Edwin Starr, an artist the label valued less. It became the most political number one in Motown's history, and the gamble paid off completely.
Edwin Starr
Norman Whitfield
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1987
'La Bamba' at number one: a Spanish-language song conquers America
On August 29, 1987, Los Lobos' version of 'La Bamba' was number one in the United States. The song is a son jarocho from Veracruz that Ritchie Valens had electrified in 1958, before dying at seventeen in the plane crash that also took Buddy Holly. Almost thirty years later, a Chicano band from East Los Angeles returned it to the top. It was the second Spanish-language number one in Hot 100 history.
Los Lobos
Ritchie Valens
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1994
Definitely Maybe: the debut that gave rock back to the British working class
On August 29, 1994, Oasis released Definitely Maybe, a debut that went straight to number one in Britain and was then the fastest-selling debut album in the country's history. Noel Gallagher's songs, sung with magnetic disdain by his brother Liam, turned Manchester council-estate life into stadium anthems: Live Forever, Supersonic, Rock 'n' Roll Star. The record lit the Britpop fuse and put guitars back at the center of British pop culture. Few first albums have delivered so literally on their own swagger.
Oasis
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1920
Charlie Parker is born: the man who sped music up until it broke
On August 29, 1920, Charles Parker Jr. was born in Kansas City. With Dizzy Gillespie he invented bebop: impossible tempos, twisted harmonies and solos that stopped serving dancers and started demanding to be listened to sitting down. It was the first time Black popular music openly declared itself art. He died at thirty-four, and the doctor who signed the certificate estimated his age at around sixty.
Charlie Parker
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1924
Dinah Washington is born: the queen who sang with a blade’s edge
On August 29, 1924, Ruth Lee Jones was born in Alabama. As Dinah Washington she sang gospel, blues, jazz and pop without accepting that they were different things, with a cutting diction that delivered every word whole to the back of the room. They called her the Queen of the Blues. She married seven times and died at thirty-nine from a mixture of diet pills and alcohol. Aretha Franklin studied her before anyone else.
Dinah Washington
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1945
Chris Copping is born: Procol Harum's one-man rhythm section
On August 29, 1945, Chris Copping was born in Middleton, Lancashire — the multi-instrumentalist who became a key piece of Procol Harum through the seventies. A schoolmate of Gary Brooker and Robin Trower in the Paramounts, he joined the band in 1969 covering both bass and Hammond organ at once. His versatility underpinned albums like Home and Broken Barricades, and the celebrated live record with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. He was the quiet link that held together the group's most adventurous era.
Chris Copping
Procol Harum
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1976
Farewell to Jimmy Reed, the bluesman who taught the Rolling Stones to walk
On August 29, 1976, Jimmy Reed died in Oakland, California, eight days short of his 51st birthday. His hypnotic, laid-back blues — harmonica racked at his neck and that unmistakable dragging boogie — placed more songs on the pop charts than almost any bluesman of his era. Big Boss Man, Bright Lights Big City and Baby What You Want Me to Do were required schooling for the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison and Elvis Presley. Simple to play and impossible to imitate: that was always the paradox of his charm.
Jimmy Reed
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1993
Liam Payne is born: one of five boys a television show threw together
On August 29, 1993, Liam Payne was born in Wolverhampton. He auditioned alone for a British television contest, didn't get through, and the judges decided to put him together with four other rejects: that is how One Direction was born, the biggest teen phenomenon since the Beatles. Payne died in Buenos Aires in 2024, aged thirty-one. His story sums up the cost of fame that arrives at sixteen with no instructions.
Liam Payne
One Direction
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