Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today October 22
1945
Leslie West is born, the guitar tone that defined early heavy rock
Leslie West is born in New York: leader of Mountain and owner of one of the fattest guitar tones ever recorded. “Mississippi Queen” (1970) is a cornerstone of hard rock, and his band played Woodstock when it had barely debuted. Generations of guitarists, from Randy Rhoads on, cited that immense vibrato as a revelation.
Leslie West
Mountain
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1942
Bobby Fuller is born, the hopeful who sang “I Fought the Law” and died like his songs
Bobby Fuller is born in Baytown, Texas: Buddy Holly's natural heir. His version of “I Fought the Law” was a 1966 hit and endured as a rebel anthem, later adopted by The Clash. Months afterwards he was found dead in a car under circumstances never clarified, one of early rock's most persistent mysteries.
Bobby Fuller
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1966
The Supremes push the Beatles off the American number one
The Billboard album chart dated 22 October 1966 crowned The Supremes A' Go-Go and evicted Revolver, which had held the top for five weeks. It was the first album by an all-female group to reach number one in the United States. Motown was no longer just a singles factory: it could sell long players against anyone.
The Supremes
Diana Ross
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1968
Shaggy is born: the marine who came back from the war and started recording
On October 22, 1968, Orville Burrell was born in Kingston. He emigrated to Brooklyn as a teenager and enlisted in the United States Marines. He served in the Gulf War and rehearsed his songs on the base. On his return he recorded "Oh Carolina" and then "Boombastic", in a deep voice impossible to mistake. In 2000 "It Wasn't Me" turned an absurd excuse into dancehall's biggest hit.
Shaggy
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1969
Led Zeppelin II lands in America and knocks Abbey Road off twice
Led Zeppelin's second album was released in the United States on 22 October 1969; Britain waited nine more days. It was recorded in fits and starts, in borrowed studios across North America while the band toured relentlessly. It reached number one in the US and held for seven weeks, which meant pushing the Beatles' Abbey Road aside twice.
Led Zeppelin
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1976
The Damned release New Rose and British punk exists on record
It came out on 22 October 1976, weeks ahead of anything by the Sex Pistols or the Clash, produced by Nick Lowe. On the B-side, a cover of the Beatles' Help! played at double speed, which sums up the whole joke: destroy the past by playing it too fast. Two and a half minutes to beat everyone to it.
The Damned
Nick Lowe
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1990
Pearl Jam debut under a name stolen from an NBA point guard
On 22 October 1990, at Seattle's Off Ramp Café, five unknowns played their first show calling themselves Mookie Blaylock, after the New Jersey Nets point guard. The name change was months away and Ten was a year away. Two of them came from Mother Love Bone, dissolved shortly before by the death of its singer.
Pearl Jam
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1942
Annette Funicello is born: the Disney girl who invented the beach movie
On October 22, 1942, Annette Funicello was born in New York; Walt Disney spotted her at twelve at a school ballet recital. She was the most popular of the Mouseketeers and went on to record a run of teenage hits she herself thought were weak. In the sixties she starred in the beach party films with Frankie Avalon, an entire genre of surf, bikinis and songs that lasted exactly a decade.
Annette Funicello
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1959
Marc Shaiman is born, who left home at sixteen and ended up winning an Oscar, a Tony and a Grammy
On October 22, 1959, Marc Shaiman was born in New Jersey. He dropped out of school and moved to New York at sixteen to work as a pianist. He became Bette Midler's arranger for decades and a composer for film: the songs in the South Park movie are his, as is the musical "Hairspray", which won him a Tony. He is one of the few people to hold an Oscar, a Tony, a Grammy and an Emmy.
Marc Shaiman
Bette Midler
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1965
Donovan releases Fairytale and stops being an obedient copy of Dylan
Fairytale came out in Britain on 22 October 1965 on Pye Records; the American edition followed a month later with a different track list. This is the record where Donovan drops the borrowed protest folk and starts looking toward the psychedelia that would define his career. Still a boy with an acoustic guitar, but with ideas of his own.
Donovan
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1966
A Hazy Shade of Winter arrives, the song someone else would make famous
Simon and Garfunkel released it as a single on 22 October 1966 and it reached number thirteen in the United States: a decent result, nothing more. Twenty-one years later the Bangles rebuilt it as sharp-edged rock for the Less Than Zero soundtrack and took it to number two. Few covers have left the original so far behind without disrespecting it.
Simon & Garfunkel
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1968
Shelby Lynne is born, who won Best New Artist with six albums behind her
She was born in Quantico, Virginia. At seventeen her father shot her mother dead in the driveway of the family home in Mobile and then killed himself; she and her sister Allison were inside the house. In 2001 she won the Best New Artist Grammy for I Am Shelby Lynne, her sixth album. Accepting it, she said it had taken thirteen years to get there.
Shelby Lynne
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1974
Kiss release Hotter than Hell and almost nobody buys it
Kiss's second album came out on 22 October 1974 with a Japanese-inspired sleeve — ukiyo-e printmaking, the character for power, a scream of hell written in kanji — and it flopped: number 100 in the United States and a lone single that failed to chart at all. Casablanca had lost its distributor. Gold certification took three years.
Kiss
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1976
Bob Seger needs nine albums for America to notice
Night Moves came out on 22 October 1976 and was his ninth studio album. Until then Seger packed halls in Michigan and sold nothing outside the state: a strictly regional legend. This record changed everything — his first platinum, two top-forty singles — built around a song about remembering teenage sex from middle age.
Bob Seger
The Silver Bullet Band
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1982
Tom Petty gets to Mad Max before music television does
You Got Lucky was released on 22 October 1982 and reached number twenty, but what lasted was the video: the band finding abandoned gear in a desert tent, its look lifted from Mad Max 2, directed by Jim Lenahan and shot at Vasquez Rocks. Petty called it a groundbreaker and he was not exaggerating: MTV had been on air barely a year.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
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1984
McCartney goes straight to number one with the soundtrack to his worst idea
Give My Regards to Broad Street came out on 22 October 1984 and entered the UK album chart at number one, despite accompanying a film almost nobody defended. McCartney re-recorded his own songs, Beatles material included, for a plot about stolen master tapes. It sounded better in a meeting room than in a cinema.
Paul McCartney
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1984
Iron Maiden turn the Battle of Britain into a three-minute single
Released on 22 October 1984 as the lead single from Powerslave, Aces High is a guitar sprint about an RAF pilot taking off before dawn. It reached number twenty in Britain. Live, it is preceded by Churchill's speech about fighting on the beaches and the roar of engines: a trick the band has repeated for four decades without wearing it out.
Iron Maiden
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1991
Tina Turner collects her second life onto a single record
Simply the Best came out on 22 October 1991 on Capitol, gathering everything she had done since her mid-eighties comeback, when she was past forty and no label was betting on her. It sold over seven million copies. The title track had been around for two years and has not left a stadium since.
Tina Turner
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1991
Matthew Sweet releases Girlfriend and power pop finds its album
It came out on 22 October 1991, the autumn grunge took all the attention. Girlfriend runs the other way: Beatles-rooted melodies cut through by two razor-sharp guitarists, Robert Quine and Richard Lloyd of Television. Sweet wrote it coming out of a marriage breakup and later said the record ended up holding everything he needed to feel.
Matthew Sweet
Robert Quine
Richard Lloyd
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1991
Neil Young releases Weld and keeps a ringing in his ears for good
A live double recorded with Crazy Horse between February and April 1991, while the Gulf War played on CNN without pause. Young filled the sets with songs about violence and performed Blowin' in the Wind over air-raid sirens. Weld came out on 22 October 1991; mixing it damaged his hearing permanently.
Neil Young
Crazy Horse
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1994
Bon Jovi top the UK chart with a record you already knew
Cross Road led the UK album chart for the week ending 22 October 1994 and ended up the country's best-selling album of the year. It gathered ten years of hits plus two new songs, one of them Always, which spent six months in the American top ten. The greatest-hits set as a major genre.
Bon Jovi
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1996
Ugly Kid Joe sign off with a joke on the cover
Motel California came out on 22 October 1996, its title mocking the Eagles and one song titled Rage Against the Answering Machine. Lemmy sang backing vocals. It was their last album before splitting in January 1997 and vanishing for thirteen years. It sounds fiercer than anything they cut while they were still selling records.
Ugly Kid Joe
Lemmy
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1996
Van Halen record with David Lee Roth again and it all blows up again
Best Of – Volume I arrived on 22 October 1996 with material from both the Roth and Hagar eras, closing with two new songs cut alongside David Lee Roth: their first together since 1984. Me Wise Magic topped the rock chart for nearly two months. The reconciliation lasted exactly as long as it took them to fall out again.
Van Halen
David Lee Roth
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2002
Foo Fighters throw away a million-dollar album
They recorded for five months at Conway Studios, spent over a million and Dave Grohl concluded it sounded like another band playing their songs. A Coachella set patched them up and he remade the album in two weeks at his Virginia studio. One by One came out on 22 October 2002. Years later he admitted only four songs seemed good to him.
Foo Fighters
Dave Grohl
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2002
The Donnas sign to a major and refuse to turn down
Spend the Night, their Atlantic debut, arrived on 22 October 2002: four women from Palo Alto playing seventies hard rock with no irony and no apology. It reached number 62 in the US and sold around 450,000 copies, with Take It Off even cracking the UK top forty. Pitchfork tore it apart; the audience did not care.
The Donnas
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