Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today November 2
1944
Keith Emerson is born, the keyboardist who stabbed his organ on stage
Keith Emerson is born in Todmorden, England: virtuoso of The Nice and of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. He took progressive rock to the stadium with giant Moog synthesizers, Mussorgsky adaptations and a show in which he drove knives into his Hammond. No one did more to make the keyboard as spectacular an instrument as the guitar.
Keith Emerson
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
1961
k.d. lang is born, the voice that disarmed country's prejudices
k.d. lang is born in Edmonton, Canada: owner of one of the most perfect voices of her generation. She began by challenging conservative country from within and conquered it anyway, claiming Patsy Cline herself as her lodestar. With “Constant Craving” she crossed into pop, and by coming out in 1992 she opened doors that remain open.
k.d. lang
1966
Mississippi John Hurt dies, found thanks to the words of one of his songs
On November 2, 1966, Mississippi John Hurt died. He had recorded a handful of sides in 1928 that sold nothing and had gone back to farm work for thirty-five years. In 1963 a collector noticed that one of his songs mentioned the town of Avalon, looked the place up on an old map and found him alive. He spent his last three years playing festivals to young audiences.
Mississippi John Hurt
1974
Nelly is born: the rapper who put St. Louis on the map by singing the hooks
On November 2, 1974, Cornell Haynes was born in Texas and raised in St. Louis, a city that did not exist on hip-hop's map. In 2000 his album "Country Grammar" sold ten million copies with a formula purists hated and the public loved: rapping and singing in the same line, with sticky melodies. The plaster he wore on his cheek was a tribute to a friend of his who was in prison.
Nelly
1974
Prodigy is born, who rapped for twenty years with an illness that hurt every day
On November 2, 1974, Albert Johnson was born in Queens, grandson of a tap dancer and great-grandson of a jazz label founder. With Havoc he formed Mobb Deep and recorded "Shook Ones Part II", one of the hardest tracks ever to come out of New York. He lived his whole life with sickle cell anaemia, a hereditary illness that causes extreme pain crises; he died of its complications in 2017, aged 42.
Prodigy
Mobb Deep
1908
Bunny Berigan is born: the trumpeter who drank his career away before thirty-five
On November 2, 1908, Bunny Berigan was born in Wisconsin, a trumpeter who passed through the Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey orchestras and in 1937 recorded his own version of "I Can't Get Started", with a solo musicians of the era learned note for note. He formed his own band and failed at running it. Alcoholism killed him in 1942, aged 33, in the exact middle of his career.
Bunny Berigan
Benny Goodman
1931
Phil Woods is born: the jazz saxophonist on the pop records everyone knows
On November 2, 1931, Phil Woods was born in Massachusetts, an alto saxophonist from the Charlie Parker school; he even married Parker's widow. His jazz career was long and respected, but everyone heard him another way: he plays the solo on Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are" and on Paul Simon's "Have a Good Time", two improvisations still on the radio today.
Phil Woods
Billy Joel
Paul Simon
1967
Kurt Elling is born: the theology student who became a jazz singer
On November 2, 1967, Kurt Elling was born in Chicago, son of a Lutheran choir director. He was doing a postgraduate degree in philosophy of religion when he started singing in night clubs and abandoned his thesis. His speciality is vocalese: putting words to an instrumental solo recorded by someone else and singing it entire, note for note. He has won two Grammys and topped critics' polls for fifteen years running.
Kurt Elling
1969
Fieldy is born: the bassist who decided to treat his instrument as a drum
On November 2, 1969, Reginald Arvizu was born in California, Korn's bassist. He had started as a drummer, and when he moved to bass he refused to play it conventionally: he strikes the strings with his thumb for a dry, metallic sound, more percussive than melodic. That noise, added to detuned seven-string guitars, defined the nu metal that dominated rock in the late nineties.
Fieldy
Korn
1991
Mort Shuman dies, half of the duo that wrote "Save the Last Dance for Me"
On November 2, 1991, Mort Shuman died in London. At New York's Brill Building he formed with Doc Pomus one of pop's most productive partnerships: they wrote "Save the Last Dance for Me", "A Teenager in Love", "Viva Las Vegas" and "Little Sister". When the business changed, Shuman moved to Paris, sang in French and became a star there in his own right.
Mort Shuman
Doc Pomus
Elvis Presley
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