BIRTHDAYS
1918     Maxene Andrews, vocals, b. Minneapolis, MN, USA. d. Oct., 21, 1995, Hyannis, MA, USA. Coronary attack. né:e: Maxene Angelyn Andrews. One of The Andrews Sisters (with Patti and LaVerne), possibly the best known of all the 1940's vocal groups. Among their many hit records are "Rum and Coca Cola"; Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy"; "Bei Mir, Bist Du Schoen", and so much more.
1932     DeFord Bailey, Jr., harmonica, b. Nashville, TN, USA
1928     Al Belletto, Alto Saxophone, b. New Orleans, LA, USA.
1938     John Berry, vocals, b. Orangeburg, SC, USA. Member: 'The Rainbows'
1909     Victor Borge, pianist/comedian, b. Copenhagen, Denmark. né: Borge Rosenbaum
1969     James Carter, saxophones, bass clarinet. Member groups: 'Mingus Big Band' / 'Art Ensemble of Chicago'
1924     Ruth Ellen Carter, C&W Vocals. Best recalled as member of 'The Chuck Wagon Gang'
1938     Noel Crow, Clarinet/Leader, b. Somerville, Australia
1936     Ray Goins, C&W Vocals/guitar, né: Ray Elwood Goins. Member of The Goins Brothers
1959     Rusty Golden, (Country) Singer-Songwriter/Keyboards/Drums, b. Brewton, AL, USA. Member: "The Goldens", a duo of Rusty and Chris Golden. (Chris: née: Christopher Normand Golden, b. October 17, 1962, Brewton, AL, USA., Singer-Songwriter, Drums, Piano, Keyboards, Mandolin, Acoustic Guitar)
1945     Philip Goodhand-Tait, piano/vocals, b. Hull, England. Member group: "Philip Goodhand-Tait and The Stormville Shakers", They backed Larry Williams (and recorded a Decca album, "The Larry Williams Show" prior to Larry's return to the USA), and Johnny "Guitar" Watson, on their UK tours. In the seventies, he was promoted as a piano-playing singer/songwriter, but he failed to achieve any great success. "The Stormville Shakers" subsequently renamed themselves "Circus" and recorded an eponymous album for the Transatlantic label.
1936     Joe Haider, pianist, b. Darmstadt, Germany
1942     Anita Madelaine Harris, vocals/actress b. Midsomer Norton, Somerset, England, UK/ Her big hit was: "Follow that Camel"
1896     Marion Harris, singer, actress, b. Indiana, USA, d. April 23, 1944, New York, NY, USA. (a lit cigarette that ignited her bed ). née: Mary Ellen Harrison. aka: Marian Harris. (NOTE: This month and day - Jan. 3 - date of birth is absolutely unreliable. ) Active in the teens, and 1930s, and has about 135 recordings to her credit., This singer is sadly forgotten today. She deserves to be better known.
1946     Motohiko Hino, Drums, b. Tokyo, Japan, d. May 13, 1999
1970     Christopher Hollyday, alto sax
1904     Joel Hopkins, guitar/vocals, b. Centerville, TX, USA, d. Feb. 15, 1975, Galveston, TX, USA. Member of the "Hopkins Brothers", consisting of Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins (vocals, guitar), Joel Hopkins (vocals, guitar), and John Henry Hopkins (vocals, guitar).
1938     Ian Hunter-Randall, Trumpet, b. Clapham, South West London, England, UK
1902     Preston Jackson, Trombone, b. New Orleans, LA, USA. d. Nov. 12, 1983
1931     John Jenkins, Alto Saxophone, b. Chicago, IL, USA.
1921     Musa Kaleem, Tenor Saxophone, flute, b. Wheeling, W.Va, USA. né: Orlando Wright
1963     Trudy Kerr, vocals, arranger, b. Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
1917     Leon McAuliffe, C&W Vocals, b: Houston, TX, USA. d. Aug. 20, 1988, d. Sept. 20, 1988, Tulsa, OK, USA. né: William Leon McAuliffe. Member of 'The Texas Playboys' - The great pioneer 'Western Swing' band. At age 14, McAuliffe began playing both Hawaiian and standard guitar. In 1931, he appeared on a local radio station as part of the 'Waikiki Strummers'. In 1933, he joined Lee O'Daniel's Light Crust Doughboys (recording with them on the ARC label). Houston's Bob Dunn, a member of Milton Brown's Brownies, showed McAuliffe how to electronically amplify his National resonator guitar. McAuliffe went on to become one of the world's best and perhaps most famous steel guitarists.
1964     Raymond McGinley, singer-songwriter/guitar, b. Edinburgh, Scotland. - 'Teenage Fanclub'
1931     Carl McVoy, C&W vocs/guitar, b: Pine Bluff, AK, USA ??, d: Jan. 3, 1992, Jackson, MS, USA.
1922     Harold "Geezil" Minerve, Alto Sax, flute, b. Havana, Cuba, d. June 4, 1992, New York, NY, USA.
1969     Nikki Nelson, vocals/Guitar, b San Diego, CA, USA. Member: "Highway 101", a group formed in Los Angeles in 1986, and was fronted by singer/guitarist Paulette Carlson (b. Oct. 11, 1953, Northfield, Minnesota), and seasoned session pros Jack Daniels (guitar, b. Choctaw, OK, USA), Curtis Stone (bass, guitar, mandolin, b. North Hollywood, CA, USA), and drummer Cactus Moser (b. Montrose, CO, USA). (Daniels and Stone had also worked together as 'The Lizards') In 1989. Carlson departed and was replaced by Nikki Nelson.
1919     Herbie Nichols, piano/composer, b. New York, NY, USA, d. April 12, 1963. (Most sources have him as Dec 3, but research indicates Jan. 3. is correct.)
1926     Danny Overbea, guitar/leader, b. Philadelphia, PA, USA, d. May 11,1994,Chicago, IL, USA.
1898     Fred Rich, Piano/Leader, b. Warsaw, Poland, d. 1956
1954     Ross "the Boss" Friedman, Guitar/Violin, b. Australia. Ross moved to New York and played, until 1975, in "The Dictators" and recorded 3 studio albums. Then moved to France where he played with "Shaking Street" on "Heaven and Hell" tour. (Shaking Street supported Black Sabbath.) In 1988, after recording "Kings Of Metal" with the group 'Manowar' , he formed his own blues-style band "The Pack".
1939     Brian Smith, Saxophone/Flute, b. Wellington, NZ
1945     Stephen Stills, The 'Stills' of 'Crosby, Stills, and Nash' (also: 'Buffalo Springfield').
1929     Floyd Standifer, Trumpet, sax, vocals, b. Wilmington, N.C., USA, d. Jan. 22, 2007, Seattle, WA, USA. Cancer. In 1936, at age 7, Standifer and his parents, (father) an African Methodist Episcopal Zion preacher, and (mother) a schoolteacher, moved to Oregon, where he and his four siblings grew up in a one-room farn house near Gresham, OR. In 1937, he was playing drums in a WPA (Works Progress Administration) band in Portland, OR. Besides teaching himself to play the sax and trumpet, he also played tuba in his high school band. In 1946, his father was transferred to a church in Seattle and Floyd enrolled at the University of Washington, -majoring in physics, but soon turned to music when he fell in with a circle of young jazz musicians that included Quincy Jones, Ray Charles, singer Ernestine Anderson and bassist Buddy Catlett (who went later became a staple in the Count Basie Orch.). How this all came about is an interesting story. After World War I, Seattle underwent some interesting demographic changes. Continuing repression of Blacks in the South, and the prospect of jobs and greater opportunities in the North drew an increasing number of southern Blacks to the Northwest. Seattle was soon rigidly divided by a "color line". Even the music industry was formally segregated. Separate unions for Whites and Blacks controlled all the professional gigs. White musicians played in the 'uptown' ballrooms, dance halls, and clubs, whereas Black musicians could find little work outside the small after-hours nightclubs along Jackson Street. The 'non-White' musicians in Local 493 were unofficially consigned by the 'White' Local 76 to play in Central Area clubs, such as the Washington Social Club, the Black and Tan, Birdland and Sessions Playhouse. One of the social institutions in this area was the 'East Madison YMCA' (East Madison was a "Black" neighborhood), and the Y's friday night Galas soon became a very popular venue for the Black musicians. All during the 1940s and 1950s, many of the best-known (Black) bands in Seattle played at the East Madison Y’s Friday night dances, including groups led by Dave Lewis (a bandleader who influenced a generation of musicians in the Northwest). It was in 1946, after his family moved to Seattle, that Floyd Standifer also discovered the 'Y', as did Oscar Holden Sr. (a gifted pianist and patriarch of the Seattle jazz scene; five of his seven children had successful careers in music). Among the musicians who might be found playing at the Y's friday night dances were such future stars as Jazz trumpeter (and later arranger and movie producer) Quincy Jones, whose family had moved to Seattle in the mid-1940s. He began playing gigs at the East Madison Y when he was still a teenager. In later years, Standifer told an interviewer that "The weekend started on Thursday and it didn't stop until Monday morning about eight o'clock,....". ".....[At Sessions] there was a guy name Jimmy Linegan [who] would play E-natural all night long. He kept a pistol on top of the piano ... the first thing I learned, don't ever stand next to anybody in a raid ... because you never know what'll end up in your pocket." Jones and Standifer sometimes sat in with singer-pianist Ray Charles, who had moved to Seattle in 1948 when Charles was just 17 years old. Charles had picked the city because it was as far as he could get from his native Florida, and the South, and still stay within the continental United States. Another regular was Ernestine Anderson, a bobby soxer at Garfield High School with a voice and a sense of swing that would make her famous. It was during this time that Standifer met all these budding musicians, and decided that Music would be his life's work, not Physics. He subsequently became a staple in the local Seattle Jazz clubs. In 1959, Standifer was part of the Quincy Jones band that toured Europe for nine months. The band included Sid Catlett and pianist Patti Bown, also from Seattle. After returning to the U.S.A, Standifer stayed briefly in New York, then returned to his home in Seattle for good. 1962 found him playing at the Seattle World's Fair, for which he composed a Jazz liturgy, "Postlude." Standifer also worked regularly with violinist Joe Venuti and accordion player Frank Sugia in a strolling, Dickensian group sponsored by Seattle's old 'Frederick & Nelson' department store, at Christmas time. He recorded two albums, "How Do You Keep the Music Playing" and "Scotch and Soda." Subsequently, Standifer went on to teach at Cornish College of the Arts, the University of Washington, Olympic College in Bremerton, and the Northwest School. He also played regularly at the Pampas club, performed with the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra
1939     Gene Summers, C&W guitar/vocs, b: Dallas, TX, USA
1942     Van Dyke Parks, piano/arranger/producer, b. Hattiesburg, MI, USA. Do you know the name Parks? A music business star for over 40 years, among the stars and groups for whom he created arrangements are Aaron Neville, Meryl Streep, The Everly Brothers, U2, Three Dog Night, Peter Ivers, Natalie Cole, Carly Simon, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Jennifer Warnes (Grammy nomination, best vocal arr., '87), Leo Kottke, Tim Buckley, Peter Case, Judy Collins, Bruce Springsteen, Phil Ochs, Ry Cooder, Cher, Arlo Guthrie, Sam Phillips, Steve Young, Victoria Williams, Stan Ridgway, Lowell George and Little Feat, Ringo Starr, Keith Moon, Kathy Dalton, Kinky Friedman, Harry Nilsson, Fiona Apple, Sheryl Crow, Syd Straw, Toad the Wet Sprocket, the Rembrandts, Randy Newman, T Bone Burnett, Tango Argentino, Eliza Carthy, The Buena Vista Social Club, and Eliza Gilkyson. On keyboard, his credits include the Byrds, Keith Moon, and Grateful Dead albums.
1943     Michael Zager, vocals. b. Jersey City, NJ, USA.
         Notable Events occuring this date include:
1948.    Joseph "Kaiser" Marshall, drums, died Age: 48 (Food poisoning)
1959.    Ed Cuffee, trombone, died in New York, NY, USA. Age: 56. Best recalled for his work with Count Basie
1963.    Lucie E. Campbell, gospel songwriter, died in Nashville, TN, USA. Age: 78
1970.    Clayton McMichen, C&W fiddler, died Battletown, KY, USA. Age: 69. Clayton was declared National Fiddling Champion 18 times. (Fiddling historians give Clayton (along with Grand Ole Opry star Arthur Smith) credit for popularizing the "long bow" style which dominates contest fiddling today.)
1973.    Wilbur DeParis, great Dixieland Jazz trumpeter, died in New York, NY, USA. Age: 72
1975.    Rene Thomas, guitar, died in Spain. (heart attack) Age: 47
1980.    Albert Hall, trumpet,vocal, died
1980.    Amos Milburn, piano, died in Houston, TX, USA. Age: 52
1980.    Felton Jarvis, producer, died in Nashville, TN, USA. Age: 46 (b. Nov. 16, 1934, Atlanta, GA, USA). He is perhaps best known as Elvis Presley's record producer from 1966 to 1977. In 1980, Jarvis began the practice of overdubbing new rhythm tracks on top of previously recorded vocals, -a common practive in today's music production. During his career, he helped such artists as "Fats" Domino, Willie Nelson, Lloyd Price, Jim Ed Brown, Carl Perkins, "Gladys Knight and the Pips", Floyd Cramer, and Ronnie McDowell, among others.
1982.    Tommy Bryant, bass, died in Philadelphia, PA, USA. Age: 51. Member: 'The Ink Spots"
1985.    Dallas Jones, C&W rhythm guitarist and member of the "Leake County Revelers" died. (The Revelers consisted of Jones, fiddler Will Gilmer, banjoist Jim Wolverton, and R.O. Moseley on the rare banjo-mandolin hybrid.)
1988.    "Doc" Hopkins, C&W Singer/Banjo/Guitar, and member of the "Cumberland Ridge Runners" died. Age: 87 (b. Jan. 26, 1900, Wallins Creek (Harlan County), Kentucky, USA. ( né: Doctor Howard Hopkins )
1993.    Rome Johnson C&W vocals, died. (Perhaps best recalled for his work with 'The Sons of the Pioneers')
1995.    Al Duncan, drums/songwriter, died in Las Vegas, NV, USA. Age: 67
1995.    Cassietta George, (Gospel) singer-songwriter, died in Los Angeles, CA, USA. Age: 65. Member: 'The Caravans'
1997.    Guitarist/singer/songwriter Randy California is best known as the leader of 'Spirit', died off of Molokai, Hawaii. Age: 45. Caught in the grip of a vicious undertow when swimming off the coast of the Hawaiian island of Molokai, Randy was somehow able to save his 12 year-old son, Quinn.
2002.    (Juan Garcia) Esquivel, piano, composer, arranger, died in Jiutepec, Mexico
         Songs Recorded/Released this date include:
       1924 "Oh Baby! (Don't Say, "No", Say "Maybe"), Waring's Pennsylvanians
       1925 "Susquehanna Home", - Naylor's Seven Aces
       1927 "Where Do You Work-a, John?", - Harry Reser and his Orch. (Tom Stacks vocal)
       1929 "Angry", - Ray Miller's Orch.
       1929 "That's A Plenty", - Ray Miller's Orch
       1933 "Makin' Whoopee!", - Paul Whiteman and his Orch
       1936 "The Music Goes Round And Round", - 'Red Mckenzie and his Mound City Blue Blowers'
       1941 "I Hear A Rhapsody", - Charlie Barnet
       1941 "Anvil Chorus", - Glenn Miller
       1941 "Five O'Clock Whistle", - Glenn Miller
       1946 "Symphony", - Bing Crosby
       1946 "Symphony", - Jo Stafford
       1947 "Gal In Calico, A", - Tex Beneke
       1970 "Without Love (There Is Nothing)", - Tom Jones
       1970 "I'll Never Fall In Love Again", - Dionne Warwick
       1976 "Love Hurts", - Nazareth
       1976 "50 Ways To Leave Your Lover", - Paul Simon
       1987 "Livin' On A Prayer", - Bon Jovi
       1987 "Ballerina Girl", - Lionel Richie