Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today September 1
1946
Barry Gibb is born, the falsetto that defined the Bee Gees
In Douglas, Isle of Man, Barry Gibb is born, the eldest of the brothers who would turn the Bee Gees into a harmony machine. From orchestral sixties ballads to the disco empire of “Saturday Night Fever”, Gibb proved that reinvention is not betrayal: few songwriters have ruled two such different eras with the same pen.
Barry Gibb
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1957
Gloria Estefan is born, the Cuban who took Latin sound to the world's radios
Gloria Estefan is born in Havana; from exile in Miami she would build, with Miami Sound Machine, a bridge between the conga and Anglo pop. Her rhythmic crossover opened the door for a whole generation of Latin artists, and she did it when singing in Spanish on American radio seemed impossible.
Gloria Estefan
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1977
Ethel Waters dies: the woman who got there first, everywhere
On September 1, 1977, Ethel Waters died in Chatsworth, California, aged 80. She sang jazz, swing and pop from the 1920s onward, and recorded 'Stormy Weather' and 'Am I Blue?'. She was the first African American to star in her own television show, in 1939, and the first Black woman nominated for an Emmy. Every door she forced open was walked through later by singers who no longer had to explain why they were there.
Ethel Waters
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1979
'Midnight Magic' tops the chart and the Commodores say goodbye to funk
On September 1, 1979, the Commodores' 'Midnight Magic' topped the R&B albums chart, where it stayed all month. The record carried 'Sail On' and 'Still', two Lionel Richie ballads that confirmed where the band was heading. The same musicians who years earlier played ferocious instrumentals were turning into a luxury wedding orchestra. They sold more than ever and lost their edge for good.
Commodores
Lionel Richie
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1984
Tina Turner hits number one at forty-four, twenty-five years after she started
The American singles chart dated 1 September 1984 had What's Love Got to Do with It at the top, where it stayed three weeks. It was her first solo number one and made her the oldest woman to manage it up to that point. She had been singing for a quarter of a century and rebuilding a career from nothing for five years.
Tina Turner
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1990
'Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em' tops the chart and rap reaches the shopping mall
On September 1, 1990, MC Hammer's 'Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em' topped the R&B albums chart. It was the first rap album to sell ten million copies, driven by 'U Can't Touch This' and a pair of trousers that became a joke and a uniform at once. Hip-hop purists accused him of selling the genre out; Hammer replied that he had opened a door everybody else then walked through.
MC Hammer
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1925
Art Pepper is born: the saxophonist who wrote jazz’s most brutal autobiography
On September 1, 1925, Art Pepper was born in California. He was one of the central voices of West Coast jazz and spent much of the sixties in San Quentin prison over heroin. In 1979 he published 'Straight Life', a memoir recounting his addiction, his thefts and his squalor without a single line of self-indulgence. Few musicians have left so honest a testimony of what a musician's life actually costs.
Art Pepper
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1933
Conway Twitty is born: the rock and roller who switched to country and won
On September 1, 1933, Harold Jenkins was born in Mississippi. He took a stage name from two towns on a map and in 1958 reached number one with 'It's Only Make Believe', an Elvis imitation so good many listeners thought it was him. Ten years later he abandoned rock and roll for country, and there strung together fifty-five number ones. Nobody has changed genre to such profit.
Conway Twitty
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1972
RCA refuses to release Bowie's most ambiguous single in America
John, I'm Only Dancing came out in Britain on 1 September 1972, between Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane, and reached number twelve. It never appeared in America: RCA decided the lyric implied too much and kept it off the catalogue until a 1976 compilation. The BBC turned down the video too. Bowie later called it his stab at a bisexual anthem.
David Bowie
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1977
Blondie buy their way out of Private Stock and sign to Chrysalis
On 1 September 1977 the band closed the Chrysalis deal that took them out of the CBGB circuit and onto radio worldwide. Private Stock had put out the debut without managing to sell it, and the rights had to be bought back. Chrysalis reissued that first album in October; fourteen months later came Parallel Lines.
Blondie
Debbie Harry
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1979
INXS use their new name for the first time at a hotel on the New South Wales coast
On 1 September 1979 they played their first gig as INXS at the Ocean Beach Hotel in Umina, on the central coast of New South Wales. They had been the Farriss Brothers, and had spent ten months in Perth taking any booking going. From beachside pub to stadium took exactly eight years and a singer nobody has managed to replace.
INXS
Michael Hutchence
Andrew Farriss
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1984
Joe Trohman is born: the guitarist who assembled Fall Out Boy online
On September 1, 1984, Joe Trohman was born in Ohio. He met Pete Wentz in Chicago's hardcore scene and recruited Patrick Stump after hearing him sing in a bookshop. Out of that came Fall Out Boy and, with them, emo turned into a mass phenomenon of the 2000s. They were among the first bands to build an audience on forums and blogs before any radio station gave them room.
Joe Trohman
Fall Out Boy
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1992
The Ramones carry on without Dee Dee and Dee Dee carries on writing their songs
Mondo Bizarro came out on 1 September 1992, the first album with C.J. Ramone on bass after Dee Dee left to try his luck at rap. Dee Dee still wrote three of the songs, among them Poison Heart, the only one to touch the charts. Joey used Censorshit to answer the record-labelling campaign. The band had four years left.
Ramones
C.J. Ramone
Dee Dee Ramone
Joey Ramone
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1997
Jungkook is born: the youngest member of the group that broke English pop’s monopoly
On September 1, 1997, Jeon Jungkook was born in Busan. He joined BTS at fifteen and became the lead voice of the first non-Anglophone group to fill stadiums worldwide and to top the American chart singing in Korean. Pop had spent seventy years demanding you sing in English to be taken seriously. Seven young men from South Korea proved that rule no longer existed.
Jungkook
BTS
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2011
Billie Joe Armstrong is taken off a plane for wearing his trousers too low
On 1 September 2011, on a Southwest flight from Oakland to Burbank, a flight attendant asked the Green Day singer to pull his trousers up. He replied by asking whether they had nothing better to worry about, and he was removed from the aircraft before takeoff. He posted it on Twitter that night and the airline had to announce the matter was settled.
Billie Joe Armstrong
Green Day
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