Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today September 19
1973
Gram Parsons dies, the secret inventor of country rock
Gram Parsons dies of an overdose at the Joshua Tree Inn motel in California, aged 26. With the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers and his solo records with Emmylou Harris, he fused country and rock when both worlds despised each other. His posthumous story — his body stolen and cremated in the desert — is as legendary as his music.
Gram Parsons
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1931
Brook Benton is born: the baritone who wrote for others and ended up singing himself
On September 19, 1931, Benjamin Peay was born in South Carolina. He made a living writing songs for Nat King Cole and Clyde McPhatter until he decided to record them himself, with a warm baritone halfway between gospel and crooner. He strung together hits for a whole decade. His 1970 version of 'Rainy Night in Georgia' is one of the most melancholy recordings in soul.
Brook Benton
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1952
Nile Rodgers is born, the most sampled rhythm guitar on the planet
Nile Rodgers is born in New York: co-founder of Chic and architect of the modern groove. His guitar on “Good Times” became the foundation of “Rapper's Delight” and, with it, of commercial hip-hop; he went on to produce Bowie, Madonna and Daft Punk. Few figures connect so many decades of dance music with one unmistakable strum.
Nile Rodgers
Chic
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1960
The Twist hits number one and teaches a country to dance without touching anyone
On the Billboard chart dated 19 September 1960, Chubby Checker's version went to the top for a week. It was a near-carbon copy of a Hank Ballard B-side, but it came with a dance that required no partner and no contact, and that changed everything. In January 1962 it topped the chart again: the first song to reach number one in two separate runs.
Chubby Checker
Hank Ballard
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1963
Jarvis Cocker is born, and it takes fifteen years for anyone to care about Pulp
Sheffield, 19 September 1963. He formed Pulp at school in 1978 and spent a decade and a half putting out records nobody bought, singing like a sarcastic neighbour who fitted no available fashion. In 1995 Common People turned that stubbornness into the sharpest piece of class writing Britpop produced. The scene that adopted him was nothing like him.
Jarvis Cocker
Pulp
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1968
The Who walk into the studio with an opera in mind and no title for it
On 19 September 1968 sessions began at IBC Studios in London for what would end up being called Tommy. It had no name yet: Deaf, Dumb and Blind Boy, Amazing Journey and The Brain Opera were all floating around. They took nearly six months, writing the plot between takes, and came out of there as a different band.
The Who
Pete Townshend
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1970
Fifteen hundred people and a one-pound ticket: this is how Glastonbury starts
On Saturday 19 September 1970 Michael Eavis opened Worthy Farm for the Pop, Blues & Folk Festival. The Kinks were billed to headline and dropped out at short notice; Tyrannosaurus Rex, not yet T. Rex, took their place. From that afternoon of fifteen hundred people grew the largest greenfield festival in the world, still held in the same field.
Michael Eavis
T. Rex
The Kinks
1981
Half a million people in Central Park for two men barely on speaking terms
On 19 September 1981 Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel played free on Central Park's Great Lawn, a benefit to raise money for the park itself. The city expected three hundred thousand people; five hundred thousand turned up. The live album sold in the millions, and the world tour that followed finished off the reconciliation for good.
Simon & Garfunkel
Paul Simon
Art Garfunkel
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1981
Tattoo You goes to number one and ends the Stones' American run
On the Billboard chart dated 19 September 1981 the album went to the top and stayed nine weeks. It was assembled from outtakes of the previous decade, dug up and given new vocals because Jagger and Richards could not stand each other enough to record together. It was the Rolling Stones' eighth consecutive American number one, and their last.
The Rolling Stones
Mick Jagger
Keith Richards
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1989
'Rhythm Nation 1814': the dance record that talked about racism and poverty
On September 19, 1989, Janet Jackson's 'Rhythm Nation 1814' was released in North America. Her label wanted another album of love songs and she insisted on a concept record about racism, drugs and inequality, set off by news of a schoolyard massacre. It is the only album in history with seven singles reaching the Hot 100's top five, and the first with number ones across three different years.
Janet Jackson
Jimmy Jam
Terry Lewis
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1887
Lovie Austin is born: the pianist who led bands when no woman did
On September 19, 1887, Cora Calhoun was born in Tennessee. As Lovie Austin she led her own band, the Blues Serenaders, and was musical director of vaudeville theatres for decades, in a trade with no women in it. She accompanied Ma Rainey and Ida Cox at the piano. Mary Lou Williams said that seeing her conduct with a cigar in her mouth while playing showed her the thing was possible.
Lovie Austin
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1958
King Creole arrives and its star has already been in uniform for six months
On 19 September 1958 RCA released the soundtrack to King Creole, the last film Elvis Presley shot before the army took him. The songs had been recorded in January and February, and the record reached the shops with him already enlisted; by October he was posted to Germany. It was the label's way of keeping him from vanishing altogether.
Elvis Presley
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1958
Lita Ford is born, into the Runaways at sixteen and out of them fully trained
London, 19 September 1958, raised in California. At sixteen she was lead guitarist in the Runaways, a band the press never stopped treating as their manager's bright idea. When it fell apart in 1979 she was the one who insisted on staying with metal, and in 1989 her duet with Ozzy Osbourne, Close My Eyes Forever, gave her a lone top ten hit.
Lita Ford
The Runaways
Ozzy Osbourne
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1987
Pink Floyd fill a stadium while the courts argue over who Pink Floyd is
On 19 September 1987, at Philadelphia's JFK Stadium, eighty thousand tickets sold and over a million and a half dollars taken. It was the A Momentary Lapse of Reason tour, the first album without Roger Waters, who was arguing in court that the band had ceased to exist when he left. The box office settled the question before the lawyers did.
Pink Floyd
David Gilmour
Roger Waters
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1988
New Jersey proves that Slippery When Wet was not an accident
Bon Jovi's fourth album came out on 19 September 1988, recorded fast in Vancouver with Bruce Fairbairn so that nobody could write them off as a passing craze. It entered at eight in America, went to number one the following week and put five singles in the top ten, more than any other hard rock album. The tour that followed nearly finished them.
Bon Jovi
Bruce Fairbairn
Richie Sambora
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1995
Clouds Taste Metallic ends the era when the Flaming Lips were a guitar band
The band's seventh album came out on Warner on 19 September 1995 and was the last with Ronald Jones, the guitarist who had turned their noise into something close to luminous. Almost nobody bought it and he left soon afterwards. Out of that dead end came the experiment of four CDs playing at once and, eventually, The Soft Bulletin.
The Flaming Lips
Ronald Jones
Wayne Coyne
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1995
Brent Faiyaz is born: the singer who turned down every label and won anyway
On September 19, 1995, Christopher Wood was born in Maryland. He built an alternative R&B career releasing independently and turning down million-dollar offers from the majors, almost unheard of for an artist of his generation and genre. He reached number two on the American chart as an independent. The infrastructure only a label used to have now fits in a phone.
Brent Faiyaz
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2008
Only by the Night makes Kings of Leon a stadium band and costs them half their following
The fourth album arrived on 19 September 2008 in Australia and Ireland, with Sex on Fire and Use Somebody on it. It went straight to number one in Britain on over two hundred and twenty thousand copies in a week and was the year's biggest seller in Australia. The American press tore it apart: the price of no longer sounding like a Southern family.
Kings of Leon
Caleb Followill
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2011
Pearl Jam turn twenty and let Cameron Crowe rummage through the tapes
The soundtrack to Cameron Crowe's documentary appeared in Europe on 19 September 2011: rehearsals, outtakes, live recordings from 1990 onwards and even the stretch when they were called Mookie Blaylock. Almost none of it was meant for release. The band that fought Ticketmaster to avoid becoming an institution finally admitted it had an archive.
Pearl Jam
Cameron Crowe
Eddie Vedder
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