Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today September 23
1949
Bruce Springsteen is born, the Boss who turned the working class into epic
Bruce Springsteen is born in Long Branch, New Jersey: the great chronicler of the American dream and its fine print. From “Born to Run” to “Nebraska”, he made heroes of the worker, the unemployed and the fugitive, with near four-hour concerts as acts of faith. Few artists have carried rock's weight so long with such dignity.
Bruce Springsteen
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1930
Ray Charles is born, the genius who mixed church with nightclub
Ray Charles is born in Albany, Georgia: blind from age seven, revolutionary from the start. By crossing gospel with rhythm and blues on “I Got a Woman” he invented much of soul, and with “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music” he tore down genre color lines. Frank Sinatra rightly called him “the only genius in the business”.
Ray Charles
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1957
That'll Be the Day hits number one and Buddy Holly is not on the label
On the Billboard chart dated 23 September 1957, That'll Be the Day was the best-selling record in American stores. It was credited to the Crickets because Holly was still tied to an earlier contract and could not use his own name on another label. The title came from a line John Wayne keeps repeating in The Searchers.
The Crickets
Buddy Holly
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1967
The Letter tops America in one minute and fifty-eight seconds
On 23 September 1967 the Box Tops' The Letter reached number one on the Hot 100 and stayed four weeks. It runs under two minutes, starts with no preamble, and the worn voice carrying it belonged to Alex Chilton, who was sixteen and sounded forty. Billboard named it the second biggest song of the year.
The Box Tops
Alex Chilton
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1970
Abraxas: Santana take over a Peter Green blues and a Tito Puente cha-cha-chá
Abraxas came out on 23 September 1970, Santana's second album and their first American number one. Inside sit Black Magic Woman, written by Peter Green, Oye cómo va, which belonged to Tito Puente, and Samba pa ti, which belonged to nobody else. Outside, an Annunciation by Mati Klarwein that Carlos spotted in a magazine and claimed.
Santana
Carlos Santana
Mati Klarwein
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1977
'Aja': the album that needed forty musicians to sound relaxed
On September 23, 1977, Steely Dan's 'Aja' was released. Becker and Fagen summoned nearly forty musicians and recorded take after take until they got exactly what they heard in their heads: for the 'Peg' solo they rejected seven guitarists before accepting the eighth. Wayne Shorter and Steve Gadd appear on the title track. It won the Grammy for best engineered recording and sounds like nobody tried.
Steely Dan
Wayne Shorter
Steve Gadd
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1977
"Heroes" is released and the public of 1977 leaves it at number twenty-four
The single appeared on 23 September 1977, recorded at Hansa studios a few steps from the Berlin Wall, with Robert Fripp on guitar and Brian Eno on synthesisers. Tony Visconti set three microphones at different distances and opened the far ones only when Bowie pushed his voice: that is why the song swells on its own.
David Bowie
Tony Visconti
Robert Fripp
Brian Eno
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1991
'Screamadelica': the album where a rock band surrendered to the club
On September 23, 1991, Primal Scream's 'Screamadelica' was released in Britain. They were a guitar band who handed the tapes to Andrew Weatherall, an acid house DJ, and let him take them apart: what came back from the studio was no longer rock. It won the first Mercury Prize ever awarded. It is the exact moment British indie stopped sneering at the dancefloor and moved onto it.
Primal Scream
Andrew Weatherall
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2019
Robert Hunter dies, the member of the Grateful Dead who never walked on stage
On 23 September 2019 the Grateful Dead's lyricist died at seventy-eight. He neither played nor sang, but he supplied the words to Ripple, Truckin' and Dark Star, and in 1994 he entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the band: the only non-performer admitted there as a member of a group.
Robert Hunter
Grateful Dead
Jerry Garcia
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1928
Frank Foster is born: the man who wrote 'Shiny Stockings' and led Basie without Basie
On September 23, 1928, Frank Foster was born in Cincinnati. He was saxophonist and arranger in Count Basie's orchestra for eleven years and wrote 'Shiny Stockings', one of the most played pieces in the big band repertoire. When Basie died, Foster ended up leading the orchestra that still carried his name. Sustaining a band after its founder dies is a strange and thankless trade.
Frank Foster
Count Basie
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1943
Julio Iglesias is born: the goalkeeper an accident turned into a singer
On September 23, 1943, Julio Iglesias was born in Madrid. He was a goalkeeper in Real Madrid's youth side until a car crash in 1963 left him unable to walk for a year and a half; during his recovery, a nurse gave him a guitar. He became the best-selling Spanish artist in history, with records in fourteen languages. No musical career began so literally by accident.
Julio Iglesias
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1966
The Stones release their longest-titled single and pose for the sleeve in drag
On 23 September 1966 the Rolling Stones issued Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing in the Shadow? simultaneously in Britain and the United States, the first time they coordinated a release across both countries. The American picture sleeve, shot by Jerry Schatzberg, showed them in drag. It was the first song Keith Richards wrote at the piano.
The Rolling Stones
Keith Richards
Jerry Schatzberg
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1970
Ani DiFranco is born: the woman who founded a label at nineteen to depend on nobody
On September 23, 1970, Ani DiFranco was born in Buffalo. In 1990, aged nineteen, she created Righteous Babe Records to release her own albums and turned down major label offers for her entire career. She sold hundreds of thousands of copies selling tapes at her own gigs. She was the model of independence that technology, twenty years later, made available to anyone.
Ani DiFranco
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1977
Love You Live: Warhol does the sleeve and Jagger corrects it by hand
The Rolling Stones' live double came out on 23 September 1977, drawn from Paris, Los Angeles and four songs from a night at Toronto's El Mocambo club, later overdubbed in the studio until they were unrecognisable. Andy Warhol made the cover and Jagger wrote the titles across it in his own hand, to the artist's dismay.
The Rolling Stones
Andy Warhol
Mick Jagger
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1977
The Stranglers release their second album of the year and ask where the heroes went
No More Heroes came out on 23 September 1977, seven months after the debut and with Martin Rushent back at the desk. Number two in Britain and gold. Dave Greenfield's organ sounded like something far older than the punk the press kept shoving them into, and they never quite let themselves be filed there.
The Stranglers
Martin Rushent
Dave Greenfield
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1991
Kyuss release their first album and nobody yet knows what to call it
Wretch came out on 23 September 1991 on the Dali label, made by four kids from the Californian desert who produced themselves and recycled half a dozen songs from an earlier EP. Reviews were lukewarm and sales non-existent. The entire genre that grew out of that low, thick guitar sound took years to arrive.
Kyuss
Josh Homme
Brant Bjork
Nick Oliveri
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1996
Moby swaps synthesisers for guitars and almost ends his career
Animal Rights came out in Britain on 23 September 1996: a record of punk and noise made by someone the public knew from the dancefloor. It flopped, he played half-empty rooms and seriously considered quitting. Three years later he released Play and everyone decided they had always held him in the highest regard.
Moby
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2003
Lucero release That Much Further West and country music fills its mouth with distortion
The Memphis band's third album came out on 23 September 2003 on Tiger Style. Ben Nichols sang songs of highways, bars and unglamorous heartbreak in a shredded voice, and the guitars were dirtier than the genre allowed. It sold little and set the template twenty other bands would later use to call themselves americana.
Lucero
Ben Nichols
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2008
Radiohead release Reckoner and hand out the stems so others can take it apart
On 23 September 2008 Reckoner appeared, the fourth and final single from In Rainbows. As they had with Nude, Radiohead posted the separated tracks — vocals, guitars, percussion — so anyone could build their own version and the public could vote for the best. A year after selling the album at whatever price, they still treated their songs as open material.
Radiohead
Thom Yorke
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