Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today November 28
1929
Berry Gordy is born, the man who manufactured the sound of young America
Berry Gordy Jr. is born in Detroit: a former boxer and Ford assembly worker who founded Motown in 1959 with an 800-dollar family loan. Applying assembly-line logic to talent, he launched Stevie Wonder, the Supremes, Marvin Gaye and the Jackson 5. His label did more for racial integration on the radio than many laws of its time.
Berry Gordy
1932
Gato Barbieri is born: the Argentine who won a Grammy for the "Last Tango in Paris" score
On November 28, 1932, Leandro Barbieri was born in Rosario. He decided to take up the saxophone after hearing a Charlie Parker record. He went to Europe and played free jazz with Don Cherry before making the turn that defined him: mixing that language with Latin American folk music. In 1972 he composed the score for "Last Tango in Paris" and won a Grammy for it.
Gato Barbieri
Don Cherry
1943
Randy Newman is born, the great ironist of the American piano
Randy Newman is born in Los Angeles, heir to a dynasty of Hollywood composers. His songs inhabited by cruel or pathetic narrators, like “Sail Away” and “Short People”, made irony a major and occasionally misunderstood art. Younger generations know him through Pixar and “Toy Story”: few artists span such opposite registers.
Randy Newman
1947
Maria Farantouri is born, who sang in exile the songs the Greek dictatorship banned
On November 28, 1947, Maria Farantouri was born in Athens, discovered at seventeen by the composer Mikis Theodorakis, who entrusted his works to her. When the colonels took power in 1967 and banned that music, she left the country and spent seven years giving concerts across Europe: every performance was also a political act. She later served as a member of the Greek parliament.
Maria Farantouri
Mikis Theodorakis
1947
Michel Berger is born, who wrote a rock opera and his own wife's songs
On November 28, 1947, Michel Berger was born in Neuilly, son of a doctor and a pianist. He wrote almost all of France Gall's repertoire, and married her, and in 1978 created "Starmania", a rock opera about a future city that is still being revived forty years later and which produced several French song standards. He died of a heart attack in 1992, playing tennis, aged 44.
Michel Berger
France Gall
1925
Gigi Gryce is born, who set up his own publisher rather than give his songs away
On November 28, 1925, Gigi Gryce was born in Florida, a saxophonist and arranger who played with Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonious Monk. In the fifties he did something almost no Black musician dared: he founded his own publishing company to keep the rights to his compositions instead of signing them over to the label. It cost him work and brought him pressure. In the early sixties he left jazz and became a public school teacher.
Gigi Gryce
1974
apl.de.ap is born, who arrived in Los Angeles from a Filipino farm at fourteen
On November 28, 1974, Allan Pineda was born in a rural province of the Philippines, son of a Filipina mother and an African-American soldier he never met. He has an eye condition that leaves him legally blind. An American lawyer funded his treatment and his adoption, and he reached Los Angeles at fourteen speaking no English. There he met will.i.am at school and together they formed the Black Eyed Peas.
apl.de.ap
Black Eyed Peas
1979
Chamillionaire is born: the rapper who won a Grammy and then went into tech investing
On November 28, 1979, Hakeem Seriki was born in Washington, raised in Houston, son of a Nigerian father. In 2005 he recorded "Ridin'", a song about police harassment of Black drivers that won a Grammy and became an accidental karaoke phenomenon. He then withdrew almost entirely from music to invest in technology companies, with considerable success.
Chamillionaire
1983
Rostam Batmanglij is born: son of Iranian exiles and architect of Vampire Weekend's sound
On November 28, 1983, Rostam Batmanglij was born in Washington, son of a food writer and an editor who left Iran after the 1979 revolution. He founded Vampire Weekend at university and was the one who produced and arranged the albums: the mixture of African guitars, harpsichords and choral harmonies that defined the band came out of his head. He left in 2016 to produce other people.
Rostam Batmanglij
Vampire Weekend
1984
Trey Songz is born, discovered singing with his back turned in a Virginia studio
On November 28, 1984, Tremaine Neverson was born in Virginia, son of a mother who had him at seventeen. He was so shy that at his first audition he sang with his back to the producer. In the 2000s he became one of the central voices of bedroom rhythm and blues, with seven consecutive albums high on the American charts.
Trey Songz
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