Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today November 20
1946
Duane Allman is born, the slide that founded Southern rock
Duane Allman is born in Nashville; he would become legend first as a Muscle Shoals session man, pushing Wilson Pickett to record “Hey Jude”, and then by founding the Allman Brothers Band. His slide on “At Fillmore East” and “Layla” remains the genre's gold standard. All of Southern rock descends from his fingers.
Duane Allman
1925
June Christy is born, who replaced Anita O'Day and made one of the first concept albums
On November 20, 1925, June Christy was born in Illinois. In 1945 she joined Stan Kenton's orchestra to fill the place Anita O'Day was leaving. In 1954 she recorded "Something Cool", an album built entirely around the monologue of a woman alone in a bar: one of the first song records conceived as a single work rather than a collection of separate hits.
June Christy
Stan Kenton
Anita O'Day
1940
Dr. John is born, the piano sorcerer of New Orleans
Mac Rebennack, the future Dr. John, is born in New Orleans. A guitarist converted to piano after a gunshot to his finger, he created a unique psychedelic voodoo with “Gris-Gris” (1968) and later distilled his city's piano tradition into classics like “Right Place Wrong Time”. No one embodied the musical mystery of New Orleans better.
Dr. John
1951
León Gieco is born, author of the song half of Latin America sings as a prayer
On November 20, 1951, León Gieco was born in Santa Fe, Argentina, son of farmers. In 1978, under the dictatorship, he wrote "Sólo le pido a Dios", a song so simple the censors did not know how to ban it and which ended up being sung on marches across the continent. His albums were censored anyway. Years later he travelled the whole country recording unknown folk musicians.
León Gieco
Mercedes Sosa
1953
Fábio Jr. is born, who sold more than thirty million records singing love songs
On November 20, 1953, Fábio Jr. was born in Minas Gerais. He started as a soap opera actor and discovered through singing that his audience was far bigger. He specialised in the romantic ballad and became one of the best-selling Brazilian artists in history, with more than thirty million records. Critics always kept their distance; the public gave him forty years of loyalty.
Fábio Jr.
1955
Bo Diddley defies Ed Sullivan on live TV and is banned forever
Bo Diddley debuts on The Ed Sullivan Show, where he had been ordered to sing the country tune “Sixteen Tons”. Live on air, he played his own “Bo Diddley” before millions of viewers. A furious Sullivan banned him from the show. The gesture cost him dearly, but it stands as one of rock's first televised rebellions: a Black artist refusing to follow the script.
Bo Diddley
1929
Raymond Lefèvre is born: the French bandleader Japan turned into a star
On November 20, 1929, Raymond Lefèvre was born in northern France, a trained flautist who led a light music orchestra and composed the scores for a series of very popular French comedies. His career took an unexpected turn in Japan: there his instrumental albums sold enormous numbers for decades and he filled concert halls until the end of his life.
Raymond Lefèvre
1937
René Kollo is born: the grandson of an operetta composer who ended up singing Wagner
On November 20, 1937, René Kollo was born in Berlin, grandson of a composer of operettas very popular in Germany. He started out singing light songs and making pop records before turning completely towards opera: he became one of the most in-demand Wagnerian tenors of his generation, a brutally demanding repertoire almost nobody manages to sustain for decades.
René Kollo
1942
Meredith Monk is born, who composes entire works without a single word
On November 20, 1942, Meredith Monk was born in New York, a composer and choreographer who decided to treat the human voice as an instrument: her works have no lyrics, only sounds, breaths, cries and trills organised by a logic of their own. Björk has repeatedly named her as a fundamental influence, and her music appears in films by the Coen brothers and Jean-Luc Godard.
Meredith Monk
Björk
1942
Norman Greenbaum is born: a practising Jew and author of the biggest Christian rock hit
On November 20, 1942, Norman Greenbaum was born in Massachusetts, raised in an observant Jewish family. In 1969 he saw a country singer performing a religious number on television and thought he could write one too; it took him fifteen minutes. "Spirit in the Sky", with its fuzzed guitar and its lyric about meeting Jesus, sold two million copies. He then went into dairy goat farming.
Norman Greenbaum
1947
Joe Walsh is born, who ran for president of the United States as a joke and got votes
On November 20, 1947, Joe Walsh was born in Kansas, guitarist with the James Gang and later the Eagles, which he joined in 1975 and gave the edge the band lacked. In 1980 he launched a joke presidential campaign promising to make "Life's Been Good" the national anthem; he received real votes in several states. His humour always obscured how good a guitarist he was.
Joe Walsh
Eagles
James Gang
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