Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today October 13
1941
Paul Simon is born, the master craftsman of American song
Paul Simon is born in Newark, New Jersey: the songwriting half of Simon & Garfunkel and later a tireless solo explorer. From “The Sound of Silence” to “Graceland”, where he embraced South African music amid controversy, his work joins melodic craftsmanship and literary ambition. Few have written so well for so many consecutive decades.
Paul Simon
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1909
Art Tatum is born: the near-blind pianist other pianists listened to standing up
On October 13, 1909, Art Tatum was born in Ohio. He could see very little because of a congenital condition and learned to play by copying by ear records on which two pianists were playing, convinced it was only one. Out of that came a technique nobody has matched. The story goes that Vladimir Horowitz heard him and said that if Tatum ever took up the classical repertoire, he would retire. He died in 1956, aged 47.
Art Tatum
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1947
Sammy Hagar is born, the “Red Rocker” who dared to succeed David Lee Roth
Sammy Hagar is born in Salinas, California: voice of Montrose, solo star of “I Can't Drive 55” and later the man who replaced David Lee Roth in Van Halen. Against all odds, his era with the band produced four consecutive number one albums. Singer, tequila entrepreneur and tireless showman, he embodies hard rock as a way of life.
Sammy Hagar
Van Halen
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1965
The Who record the stutter that gave them an identity for good
On 13 October 1965, at IBC Studios in London, The Who cut “My Generation” in a handful of takes. Townshend had written it as a slow protest blues; what came out was a sped-up manifesto with Roger Daltrey's stutter and a John Entwistle bass solo, an outright rarity on a single of the time. It went on sale two weeks later.
The Who
Pete Townshend
Roger Daltrey
John Entwistle
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1966
The Jimi Hendrix Experience make their debut in a Normandy town
On 13 October 1966, at the Novelty in Évreux, the trio Chas Chandler had just assembled played its first show, supporting the French idol Johnny Hallyday. Hendrix had been in Europe three weeks, Noel Redding had only just switched from guitar to bass, and Mitch Mitchell got the drum stool on a coin toss. Five days later they were at the Paris Olympia.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Jimi Hendrix
Johnny Hallyday
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1974
Ed Sullivan dies, the stiff man who introduced rock to America
On 13 October 1974 the presenter who brought Elvis Presley and The Beatles into American living rooms died in New York, aged seventy-three. He could not sing or dance and spoke as though something hurt, but for twenty-three years his Sunday show decided who existed. Oesophageal cancer took him, and his family kept the diagnosis from him to the end.
Ed Sullivan
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1979
Michael Jackson returns to number one with the first thing he wrote alone
On 13 October 1979 “Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough” topped the American chart, seven years after “Ben”. Jackson was twenty-one, had broken away from family control, and was releasing a song of his own as a single for the first time, with that high voice pushing the beat from above. It won him his first solo Grammy and opened the decade he would own.
Michael Jackson
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1992
Prince releases an album whose title nobody can pronounce
On 13 October 1992 the album signed with an unpronounceable symbol came out, a crossing of the male and female signs that Prince registered as his own property. Months later he took it as his name, to make life impossible for Warner, with whom he was fighting over his catalogue. Inside: first-rate funk, “7”, and a rock opera with a reporter in it.
Prince
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2016
The Swedish Academy crowns a singer and he takes days to answer
On 13 October 2016 Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for creating new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition. He was the first songwriter to win it, and half the literary world took offence. He said nothing for days, did not turn up to the December ceremony and collected the medal privately months later.
Bob Dylan
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1921
Yves Montand is born: the son of Italian peasants trained by Édith Piaf
On October 13, 1921, Ivo Livi was born near Florence; his family fled fascism for Marseille when he was a baby. He worked on the docks and in a hairdresser's before singing in cabarets. In 1944 Édith Piaf took him on as a support act, then as a partner, and taught him everything she knew about the trade. His version of "Les feuilles mortes" is the definitive one, and in English it became a jazz standard.
Yves Montand
Édith Piaf
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1927
Lee Konitz is born: the saxophonist who refused to sound like Charlie Parker
On October 13, 1927, Lee Konitz was born in Chicago. At a time when absolutely every alto saxophonist imitated Charlie Parker, he chose a light tone, almost without vibrato, and a cooler, more sideways way of improvising. He was on "Birth of the Cool" with Miles Davis in 1949 and kept recording for seventy years, always looking for new ways to play the same old tunes.
Lee Konitz
Miles Davis
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1938
Shirley Caesar is born: the first lady of gospel who started singing at ten
On October 13, 1938, Shirley Caesar was born in Durham, North Carolina, daughter of a gospel singer who died when she was twelve and left the family without income. She had started singing for money at ten and never stopped. With the Caravans and later on her own she built a career of more than sixty years, eleven Grammy awards and a preached style halfway between sermon and song.
Shirley Caesar
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1967
The ace Townshend held for two years and Britain would not buy
On 13 October 1967 “I Can See for Miles” came out in the UK, the song Pete Townshend had been keeping back for two years in case of emergency. It only reached number ten and he took it as a personal betrayal by the British public. In America it was The Who's only top ten, and McCartney answered by trying to make something louder still.
The Who
Pete Townshend
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1968
Lennon is left alone at Abbey Road and closes the White Album
On 13 October 1968 John Lennon recorded “Julia” with a guitar and nothing else: it is the last track cut for the white double and the only song in the entire Beatles catalogue performed by a single member. It is addressed to his mother, dead when he was seventeen, and to Yoko Ono besides. Donovan had taught him the fingerpicking in India.
The Beatles
John Lennon
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1973
The Stones top America with the album they cut in Kingston
On the Billboard chart dated 13 October 1973, “Goats Head Soup” reached number one and would stay there four weeks. The band had recorded it in Jamaica because half the line-up was barred from too many countries, and the ballad “Angie” had already done the heavy lifting months earlier. This was the album after “Exile”, and the hangover shows.
The Rolling Stones
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1978
Weller threw his best song in the bin and the producer fished it out
On 13 October 1978 “Down in the Tube Station at Midnight” was released, three minutes telling of a racist beating suffered by a man riding home on the London Underground. Paul Weller had discarded it as unfinished; his producer picked the paper off the studio floor and pushed him to complete it. It reached number fifteen despite the BBC's misgivings.
The Jam
Paul Weller
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1978
AC/DC close their first era with Angus run through by his own guitar
On 13 October 1978 “If You Want Blood You've Got It” came out in Britain and Europe, taped almost entirely on an April night at the Glasgow Apollo. It is the only live album released in Bon Scott's lifetime and the best proof that this band worked better sweating than in a studio. On the sleeve, Angus Young is skewered by his own Gibson.
AC/DC
Bon Scott
Angus Young
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1979
Blondie reach the top in a British week with two charts in it
“Eat to the Beat” headed the UK albums chart dated 13 October 1979, two weeks after release. It was a very odd week: a change in the publication day meant two rundowns came out back to back, and The Police took the spot off them almost immediately. It was Blondie's second number one album in Britain that same year.
Blondie
Debbie Harry
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1980
INXS made their first album overnight and on ten thousand dollars
On 13 October 1980 the self-titled INXS debut came out in Australia, made at Sydney's Trafalgar Studios between midnight and dawn, after playing pub gigs, because the budget would not stretch to daytime hours. Outside Australia and New Zealand nobody heard it until 1984. Hutchence was twenty and already knew exactly how to look at a camera.
INXS
Michael Hutchence
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1980
Ashanti is born, who in 2002 had three songs in the top ten at once
On October 13, 1980, Ashanti Douglas was born in New York. She started out singing hooks on rappers' records, a role then considered minor. In 2002 it all came good at once: "Foolish" went to number one while she appeared on two other top-ten hits, and her first album sold half a million copies in a week. That model of a melodic singer alongside a rapper defined half a decade of radio.
Ashanti
Ja Rule
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1982
Fifty minutes of Clash at Shea that took twenty-six years to appear
On 13 October 1982 The Clash dispatched fourteen songs in under fifty minutes in front of the Mets' stadium, on the second night they opened for The Who. Topper Headon had already been sacked and Terry Chimes was on drums. The tape only came out in 2008 as “Live at Shea Stadium”: the band huge, and a year from falling apart.
The Clash
Terry Chimes
The Who
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1984
U2 top Britain with the album where they learned to blur
“The Unforgettable Fire” headed the UK albums chart dated 13 October 1984 and held on for two weeks. It was U2's first record with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, partly cut inside Slane Castle, and the one that swapped frontal anthems for mist and texture. The title came from an art exhibition about Hiroshima.
U2
Brian Eno
Daniel Lanois
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1986
Neil Young puts on an acoustic festival for his son's school
On 13 October 1986, at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, the first Bridge School Benefit was held for the school for children with severe disabilities that Pegi Young had helped build with her own son in mind. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Don Henley and Nils Lofgren played. It ran for three decades.
Neil Young
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
Bruce Springsteen
Tom Petty
1992
Mudhoney sign to a major and hand in their most careless record
On 13 October 1992 “Piece of Cake” appeared, Mudhoney's debut for Reprise just as Seattle was the business of the year. The godfathers of grunge answered the contract with thirteen songs tossed off any old way and interludes of silly noise, and stalled at 189 in America. The press, against all odds, filed it among the year's best.
Mudhoney
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2003
Sheryl Crow sums up ten years and someone else's song saves it
On 13 October 2003 “The Very Best of Sheryl Crow” came out in the UK, a reckoning of the decade that began with “All I Wanna Do”. The only new material was two songs, and one of them — a radio-shaped rereading of Cat Stevens — became one of her biggest hits and stretched the compilation's commercial life far beyond plan.
Sheryl Crow
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