Nick Donovan

Nick Donovan

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ON THIS DAY IN MUSIC HISTORY: 10.27

1957 - Police in Oakland, California, inform Elvis Presley that he is not allowed to swivel his hips onstage in tonight's performance at the Oakland Auditorium; Elvis responds by sarcastically wiggling only his little finger while singing. The cops film the show anyway, just in case. It was the 50's...

1975 - Bruce Springsteen made the cover of both Time and Newsweek. The articles were written in response to the breakthrough success of Born to Run, which had been released two months earlier.

According to Peter Ames Carlin’s 2012 biography, Bruce, it wasn’t a coincidence. Jay Cocks of Time found out that Maureen Orth of Newsweek was doing a piece about Springsteen and convinced his editor that they were about to be one-upped by their chief competitor.

Cocks, a big Springsteen fan, wrote a piece called "Rock’s New Sensation" in which he heaped praise on the new star. However, Newsweek took the angle that Springsteen’s success was not only the result of his talent but also due to what Joni Mitchell called the “starmaker machinery behind the popular song.”

1972 - Stevie wonder releases Talking Book. After releasing two "head" records during 1970 and 1971, Stevie Wonder expanded his compositional palette with 1972's Talking Book to include societal ills as well as tender love songs, and so recorded the first smash album of his career. It included "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" and the funk landmark "Superstition" urging empowerment instead of hopelessness, set to a grooving beat that made it one of the biggest hits of his career. Like no other Stevie Wonder LP before it, Talking Book is all of a piece, the first unified statement of his career.

1982 - Prince releases 1999. It was constructed almost entirely on synthesizers by Prince himself, strongly recalled the electro-funk experiments of several underground funk and hip-hop artists at the time. But he didn't simply rely on the extended instrumental grooves to carry the album -- he didn't have to when his songwriting was improving by leaps and bounds. "1999" parties to the apocalypse with a P-Funk groove, "Little Red Corvette" is pure pop, and "Delirious" takes rockabilly riffs into the computer age. Sure, at times, Prince stretches out a bit too much over the course of 1999, but the result is a stunning display of raw talent, not wallowing indulgence. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)

1986 - David Byrne, who has recently directed the movie True Stories (with a soundtrack by his band, Talking Heads), makes the cover of Time magazine under the headline "Rock's Renaissance Man."

Nowhere on the cover is Byrne's band, Talking Heads, mentioned. This exacerbates tensions with the group, who feel that Byrne is downplaying their contributions and hogging all the credit for their accomplishments. The band breaks up after one more album, Naked, released in 1988.

1988 - U2's film, Rattle And Hum, received its global premiere in Dublin, the band's hometown. Some of the footage was filmed at the old McNichols Arena. Were you there?

2008 - Delaney Bramlett, the guitarist who gained renown in the late 1960s as part of the rhythm and blues combo Delaney And Bonnie and Friends, died

2013 - Lou Reed died at the age of 71. Few rock artists have been more influential without achieving superstardom than Lou Reed. His songwriting -- unusually literate and often embracing themes that flouted society's conventions, especially in terms of drugs and sex -- broke fresh ground that other artists would follow, and his willingness to confront his audience made him a vitally important precursor to the punk revolution of the mid- to late '70s. He often said that his goal was to apply the freedom and creative sensibility of literature to rock music.

One of Reed’s most well known quotes is this: “One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz.”

Keep it simple, don’t overdo it.

Birthdays:

Garry Tallent, bass player with the Bruce Springsteen E Street Band, is 73.

Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran is 64.

Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots was born today in 1967.

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On this Day In Music History was sourced from This Day in Music, Ultimate Classic Rock, Allmusic, Song Facts and Wikipedia.


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