Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today December 1
1976
The Sex Pistols swear on primetime TV and punk becomes national news
Last-minute guests on British TV's Today show, the Sex Pistols answer host Bill Grundy's goading with a string of live obscenities. The next day they were on every tabloid front page, and punk went from subculture to moral panic. Two minutes of television did more for the genre than a hundred gigs.
Sex Pistols
1933
Lou Rawls is born, the velvet voice Sinatra called the silkiest in the business
On December 1, 1933, Lou Rawls was born on the South Side of Chicago. He started out singing gospel alongside Sam Cooke and ended up with a baritone so velvety that Frank Sinatra described it as the silkiest voice in the business. He recorded soul hits like "You'll Never Find Another Love like Mine" and spent the last three decades of his life raising hundreds of millions of dollars for historically Black colleges.
Lou Rawls
Sam Cooke
1944
John Densmore is born, The Doors' jazz drummer
John Densmore is born in Los Angeles; his brushwork and bossa nova touch open “Riders on the Storm”. Trained in jazz, he gave The Doors a unique rhythmic elasticity for following Jim Morrison's stage deliriums. Years later he would fight legal battles against his own bandmates to keep the songs out of advertising.
John Densmore
The Doors
1951
Jaco Pastorius is born, who pulled the frets off the bass and gave it a voice of its own
On December 1, 1951, John Francis Pastorius III was born in Pennsylvania. He introduced himself as the greatest bass player in the world and had the arguments to back it up. He tore the frets off his Fender Jazz with a butter knife, sealed the wood with epoxy and got a singing tone nobody had heard before. With Weather Report and on his own records he turned the electric bass into a lead instrument. He died at 35 after a beating.
Jaco Pastorius
Weather Report
1985
Janelle Monáe is born, the fugitive android who brought psychedelic funk into the 21st century
On December 1, 1985, Janelle Monáe was born in Kansas City, daughter of a cleaner and a truck driver. She built her career around Cindi Mayweather, a fugitive android who let her talk about race, class and desire without asking anyone for permission. "The ArchAndroid" and "Dirty Computer" rescued the psychedelic funk of Prince and Parliament for a generation that never lived through it.
Janelle Monáe
Prince
1934
Billy Paul is born, the man who turned an affair into the most elegant soul in Philadelphia
On December 1, 1934, Billy Paul was born in Philadelphia, a jazz singer turned star of the Philadelphia sound. In 1972 he recorded "Me and Mrs. Jones", the story of an affair told in whispers that reached number one and sold more than two million copies. Gamble and Huff, his producers, had to push him hard: Paul thought the song was too scandalous for radio.
Billy Paul
1946
Gilbert O'Sullivan is born, the Victorian orphan who wrote one of rap's most sampled songs
On December 1, 1946, Raymond O'Sullivan was born in Waterford, Ireland. He renamed himself Gilbert and presented himself to the public dressed as a Victorian orphan, in a flat cap and short trousers. Behind the costume was a sharp songwriter: "Alone Again (Naturally)", his account of a man left at the altar, spent six weeks at number one in the United States and is now a sampling standard.
Gilbert O'Sullivan
1947
Alain Bashung is born, who took thirty years to become France's finest rock songwriter
On December 1, 1947, Alain Bashung was born in Paris, raised by a foster family in Alsace and completely unknown until well past thirty. "Gaby oh Gaby", an accidental hit in 1980, opened the door for what he really wanted to do: increasingly strange and literary records that French critics came to regard as the best rock ever written in their language.
Alain Bashung
1955
Udit Narayan is born, the voice that sang for nearly every Bollywood leading man
On December 1, 1955, Udit Narayan was born in a village in northern Bihar, on the Nepalese border. He came to Bombay to sing on Hindi film soundtracks and ended up recording thousands of songs in more than thirty languages. His is the voice coming out of the mouths of nearly every Indian leading man of the 1990s, even though audiences rarely know his face.
Udit Narayan
1977
Brad Delson is born, the quietest guitarist in nu metal's biggest-selling band
On December 1, 1977, Brad Delson was born in Los Angeles, guitarist for Linkin Park and for years the most low-key member of the group. He studied communications at university and roomed with the band's future bass player, who got in through that side door. "Hybrid Theory", the 2000 debut, sold more than thirty million copies and remains among the best-selling rock records of the century.
Brad Delson
Linkin Park
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