Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today September 20
1973
Jim Croce dies in a plane crash, at the peak of his career
Jim Croce dies at 30 when his small plane crashes after a concert in Natchitoches, Louisiana. The songwriter of “Time in a Bottle” and “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” had spent years driving trucks before making it; success lasted barely two. His death turned “Time in a Bottle”, a meditation on time running out, into prophecy.
Jim Croce
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1948
The Panozzo twins are born, Styx's founding rhythm section
Twins John and Chuck Panozzo, founding drummer and bassist of Styx, are born in Chicago. From the family basement they built one of America's best-selling rock bands of the seventies and eighties, with anthems like “Come Sail Away”. Two identical brothers holding the same pulse for decades is one of rock's loveliest oddities.
John Panozzo
Chuck Panozzo
Styx
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1969
Blind Faith top the American chart once they have stopped being a band
The only album by the supergroup of Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Ginger Baker and Ric Grech topped the Billboard chart dated 20 September 1969 and held for two weeks. By then there was no band left: Clapton and Winwood had decided to end it the moment the tour finished in Hawaii in August, and the announcement did not come until October.
Blind Faith
Eric Clapton
Steve Winwood
Ginger Baker
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1975
'Fame' gives David Bowie his first number one in the United States
On September 20, 1975, 'Fame' reached number one in the United States: David Bowie's first after a decade of career. He wrote it with John Lennon and his guitarist Carlos Alomar, in an improvised New York session, over a riff Alomar had built for something else. Bowie had spent years enormous in Britain and invisible in America; the funk record was what opened the door.
David Bowie
John Lennon
Carlos Alomar
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1976
Punk introduces itself in a small room on Oxford Street
On Monday 20 September 1976 the festival that put the whole scene in one room began at London's 100 Club: the Sex Pistols headlining, the Clash, Subway Sect and the debut of Siouxsie and the Banshees, who knew no songs at all and went on to improvise. On the second night a glass thrown from the crowd blinded a young woman in one eye.
Sex Pistols
The Clash
Siouxsie and the Banshees
1980
The Game is the only Queen album ever to reach number one in America
On the Billboard chart dated 20 September 1980 it went to the top and stayed five weeks. It was their eighth album and the first on which they allowed a synthesizer, after years of printing on the sleeves that there were none. With Another One Bites the Dust on it, it remains their best-selling record in that country.
Queen
Freddie Mercury
John Deacon
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1980
Kate Bush enters straight at number one, and no British woman had done it before
Never for Ever topped the UK albums chart for the week dated 20 September 1980, and it did so on entry. It was the first album by a British female solo artist to reach the top, and the first by any female solo artist to go in at number one. Bush had co-produced it with Jon Kelly, at twenty-two.
Kate Bush
Jon Kelly
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1997
Candle in the Wind rules the British chart and there will not be another single like it
On the British chart week ending 20 September 1997, the version Elton John sang at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, sat at number one, reached on a single day of counted sales. Six hundred and fifty thousand copies in twenty-four hours and over a million and a half in seven days. It is still the country's best-selling single ever.
Elton John
Bernie Taupin
George Martin
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1927
John Dankworth is born: the saxophonist who built a theatre in his garden
On September 20, 1927, John Dankworth was born in London. He was among the musicians who brought bebop to Britain, led orchestras and composed film scores. With his wife, the singer Cleo Laine, he turned a stable in their garden into a concert hall that still operates as a school and a venue. He died on the day of a concert organised to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary.
John Dankworth
Cleo Laine
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1929
Joe Temperley is born: the Scot who took Harry Carney's chair
On September 20, 1929, Joe Temperley was born in a Fife mining village. He learned saxophone in a village band and ended up in New York, where in 1974 he was called to replace Harry Carney in Duke Ellington's orchestra: the baritone who had defined that band's sound for forty-seven years. He then anchored the Lincoln Center orchestra until the age of eighty-six.
Joe Temperley
Duke Ellington
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1966
Nuno Bettencourt is born: the virtuoso remembered for an acoustic ballad
On September 20, 1966, Nuno Bettencourt was born in the Azores and emigrated as a child to Boston. With Extreme he developed a fiendishly difficult funk-metal guitar technique, and the world ended up knowing him for 'More Than Words', two voices and an acoustic guitar recorded almost by accident. It is the technical musician's curse: the simplest thing he recorded is the only one people remember.
Nuno Bettencourt
Extreme
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1967
The Nelson twins are born, a third straight generation to reach number one
On September 20, 1967, Gunnar and Matthew Nelson were born in Los Angeles, sons of Ricky Nelson and grandsons of Ozzie and Harriet. In 1990, as the duo Nelson, they reached number one in the United States and completed something no other family had done: three consecutive generations with a number one. The long blond hair and melodic hard rock were of their time; the lineage was unrepeatable.
Gunnar Nelson
Matthew Nelson
Ricky Nelson
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1968
Ben Shepherd is born, auditioned for Soundgarden and did not know the songs
Okinawa, 20 September 1968, raised in Washington state. He auditioned in 1989 to replace Hiro Yamamoto even though he was a guitarist; they liked him, but he did not know the material and the job went to Jason Everman. A year later they called him anyway, and from the bass he co-wrote parts of Badmotorfinger, Superunknown and Down on the Upside.
Ben Shepherd
Soundgarden
Jason Everman
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1969
Sugar, Sugar goes to number one and the band that signed it does not exist
On the Billboard chart dated 20 September 1969, the Archies' song began a four-week run at the top, displacing the Rolling Stones' Honky Tonk Women. Behind the cartoon were session musicians on Don Kirshner's payroll, the man who had built the Monkees and had grown tired of arguing with flesh-and-blood performers.
The Archies
Don Kirshner
Jeff Barry
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1969
Bad Moon Rising tops the British chart, the only time Creedence ever managed it
John Fogerty's song reached number one in the United Kingdom on the week ending 20 September 1969, five months after its release. In America it had stalled at number two, as so many of theirs did: Creedence Clearwater Revival piled up five number twos and never once had a number one at home.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
John Fogerty
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1976
Dirty Deeds comes out in Australia and America takes five years to notice
AC/DC's third album appeared on 20 September 1976 in Australia, recorded at Albert Studios in Sydney with Harry Vanda and George Young. Their label's American arm turned it down and it was not issued there until 1981, more than a year after Bon Scott's death. It then reached number three: there had never been anything wrong with the record.
AC/DC
Bon Scott
Harry Vanda
George Young
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1983
The three guitarists who passed through the Yardbirds finally share a stage
On 20 September 1983 the Royal Albert Hall hosted the benefit Ronnie Lane put together to fund multiple sclerosis research, the illness he had himself. Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page each played their own set and came together at the end for Layla, with a different solo apiece. It was the first time.
Ronnie Lane
Eric Clapton
Jeff Beck
Jimmy Page
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1984
Forever Young comes out as a single and takes years to find its audience
On 20 September 1984 Alphaville released as a single a ballad from their first album, written with the cold war in the background and a melody that promises the exact opposite of what the words say. It worked at once in Germany; in America it took time and ended up as the prom anthem, which is as far as a song about the end of the world can travel.
Alphaville
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1993
Depeche Mode hold the first online press conference and someone unplugs the phone
On 20 September 1993, at Lou Reed's suggestion, the band logged on to AOL to answer fans' questions: it is regarded as the first online meeting between a band and its audience. The phone line ended up out of the wall socket and it took them nearly an hour to get back into their own press conference. The idea stuck anyway.
Depeche Mode
Lou Reed
2009
Muse push a ninety-two-year-old singer off the top of the British chart
On the UK albums chart dated 20 September 2009, The Resistance went to number one. The week before, the top spot belonged to a Vera Lynn compilation; she was ninety-two. She was replaced by a record that ends with a three-part symphony about humanity leaving Earth. Neither was what 2009 was supposed to be selling.
Muse
Matt Bellamy
Vera Lynn
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2009
Backspacer runs thirty-six minutes and puts Pearl Jam back at number one
Pearl Jam's ninth album came out on 20 September 2009: eleven songs, thirty-six minutes, Brendan O'Brien producing again and no intention of sounding solemn. It was their first American number one since 1996. They released it on their own label and sold it through a chain store, which was another way of picking a fight with the industry.
Pearl Jam
Brendan O'Brien
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2013
Kings of Leon come back after the previous tour fell apart
Mechanical Bull came out in Europe and Australia on 20 September 2013, two years after Caleb Followill walked off stage in Dallas and the band cancelled the rest of their American dates. The album is the reverse of all that: less stadium, more brothers playing in a room. It entered at number two in America on a hundred and ten thousand copies.
Kings of Leon
Caleb Followill
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