Chapter 01 — Today in music
On a day like today December 24
1945
Lemmy is born, the man who was Motörhead
Ian Fraser Kilmister, Lemmy, is born in Stoke-on-Trent, England. A Hendrix roadie and Hawkwind bassist, he founded Motörhead after being fired and created a sound so fast and dirty it spawned all of thrash. With his mic raised high, warts and Jack Daniel's, he lived by his own law to the end. “Ace of Spades” is his autobiography in three minutes.
Lemmy Kilmister
Motörhead
1893
Harry Warren is born, Hollywood's most successful songwriter whom nobody recognised
On December 24, 1893, Salvatore Guaragna was born in Brooklyn, son of Italian immigrants, and taught himself music. As Harry Warren he wrote more than eight hundred songs for the cinema, won three Academy Awards and put dozens of tunes at number one, among them "Chattanooga Choo Choo". He complained that everybody sang his songs and nobody knew his name.
Harry Warren
1918
Dave Bartholomew is born, the man behind nearly every Fats Domino hit
On December 24, 1918, Dave Bartholomew was born in Louisiana, a trumpeter and bandleader who became the most important producer in New Orleans. He co-wrote and recorded "Ain't That a Shame", "Blue Monday" and "I'm Walkin'" with Fats Domino, among dozens more. A good deal of what we call early rock and roll passed through his hands. He died at one hundred.
Dave Bartholomew
Fats Domino
1924
Lee Dorsey is born, the boxer who kept fixing cars even with hits on the radio
On December 24, 1924, Lee Dorsey was born in New Orleans. He was a professional boxer before he sang. With songs by Allen Toussaint he recorded "Ya Ya" and "Working in the Coal Mine", two hits heard around the world. He never gave up his body shop for it: he went on repairing cars between tours, hands covered in grease.
Lee Dorsey
Allen Toussaint
1971
Ricky Martin is born, the Puerto Rican who opened Latin pop's biggest door
Ricky Martin is born in San Juan, Puerto Rico: a former Menudo member who detonated the Latin explosion in the Anglo market with “Livin' la Vida Loca” (1999). His performance at that year's Grammys, celebrated by the whole industry, changed the commercial calculus of Spanish-language pop. Without that open door, Latin music's current global reign would have taken longer.
Ricky Martin
1906
Franz Waxman is born, the first composer to win the Oscar two years running
On December 24, 1906, Franz Wachsmann was born in Upper Silesia. He was working in German cinema until a group of Nazis beat him in a Berlin street in 1934. He fled to the United States, changed his surname and wrote the music for some hundred and fifty films. He won the Oscar for "Sunset Boulevard" and did it again the following year, which nobody had done before.
Franz Waxman
1931
Mauricio Kagel is born, the Argentine who wrote a piece with a football referee
On December 24, 1931, Mauricio Kagel was born in Buenos Aires. In 1957 he settled in Cologne, capital of the European avant-garde, and never returned. He invented instrumental theatre: pieces in which what the musicians do on stage matters as much as what is heard. In "Match", two cellists face each other in a duel and a percussionist acts as referee.
Mauricio Kagel
1944
Woody Shaw is born, the last great innovator of the jazz trumpet
On December 24, 1944, Woody Shaw was born in North Carolina, raised in Newark and hired by Eric Dolphy at eighteen. He built a trumpet vocabulary based on wide interval leaps that nobody had attempted. A degenerative disease was slowly blinding him while he kept recording. He died at forty-four after falling under a subway train.
Woody Shaw
Eric Dolphy
1946
Jan Akkerman is born, the Dutchman voted best guitarist in the world in 1973
On December 24, 1946, Jan Akkerman was born in Amsterdam, guitarist for Focus, the band that reached international charts with "Hocus Pocus", a rock instrumental with a flute solo and a singer who only yodels. In 1973 the readers of Melody Maker voted him best guitarist in the world, ahead of every English name.
Jan Akkerman
Focus
1991
Louis Tomlinson is born, from the band that lost the contest and won the decade
On December 24, 1991, Louis Tomlinson was born in Doncaster. In 2010 he auditioned alone for a British talent show, was eliminated, and the judges put him together with four other rejects to form One Direction. The group finished third in the competition and then sold seventy million records. Tomlinson co-wrote more of their songs than any other member.
Louis Tomlinson
One Direction
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