Today In Music, February 22nd

From the Rockmine Almanac for today (Friday 22nd February):

Birth

1938. Bobby Hendricks (The Drifters) born in Columbus, Ohio.

On Stage

2001. Barbra Streisand is presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Film Institute. She can add it to the others in her trophy cabinet. She already has 2 Academy Awards, 10 Golden Globes, 10 Grammys, 2 Peabody Awards, 3 Emmys and 1 Tony! Lifetime achivement awards can be mawkish but this takes the art to new depths.

In Court

2000. The Smashing Pumpkins file a lawsuit against Ozzy Osbourne‘s wife Sharon in Los Angeles Superior Court. The suit seeks unspecified damages for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and fraud. In the court papers, the band allege that Sharon Osbourne “reneged without notice or any warning on an agreement to manage the band” and “misappropriated funds” amounting to $ 150,000. The cash was given as an advance on signing Osbourne as manager and despite requests for its return, has not been forthcoming. The suit alleges that Osbourne “conjured absurd expenses as a claimed offset” against the funds.

In Hospital

1998. House Of Pain rapper Everlast (real name Erik Schrody) is in intensive care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles having suffered a heart attack at the age of 27. The rap star was diagnosed as having a congenital heart defect two years ago. Since being admitted to hospital, he has had a five hour operation to fit an artificial heart valve.

On Television

1992. Soul Train (U.S.A.) featuring Peabo Bryson and MC Lyte.

Death

1976. Florence Ballard dies from a heart attack in a Detroit hospital. Seven years after leaving The Supremes, she was trying to make a comeback.

Music Paper From Today

 

 

New Musical Express from 22nd February 1969. A copy taken from Rockmine’s almost complete run of U.K. music papers from the last 45 years. 

 

Daily Babble

 

It always strikes me how some days I’ll struggle to find a court case to report. I’ll go to The Almanac or the filing cabinets and there’s nothing there. TV shows aplenty, hundreds of new releases and awards and even zany headlines in the press but sometimes no-one’s in court! Today’s the opposite. It was hard to choose what to include. The big one, of course, is George Michael being sued by Marcelo Rodrigues for slander and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Rodrigues was the cop that bust George as he came out of the toilet. The lawsuit is dated today and does make fascinating reading but who’s interested anymore?

 

On exactly the same day (in 2000), rapper Jay-Z was formally arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on two charges of assault after allegedly stabbing hip-hop impresario Lance “Un” Rivera on December 1st. Then a year later it’s the case  involving Sean “Puffy” Combs and his bodyguard. Both men are charged with gun possession and bribery after an incident at Club New York on December 27, 1999. One year on from that in U.S. District Court for Northern California, a judge denies a request by the Record Industry Association of America for a summary judgement in their case against Napster.

 

That’s just some of what was happening in courtrooms on this day and I’ve only gone back a few years!

 

I once contributed dates of birth and death to a study being done by a London hospital on life expectancy of people who’d had a Top Ten U.K. Chart hit. I assume it was for life insurance purposes. Maybe my next project should be to look at the number of courtroom days taken by rappers against other rock and pop stars. Would that be as valuable for their legal insurance?

Talking of rappers: back in the days of the dot com boom I was tempted to start a company called notbodyarmor.com. So many rappers were getting bust for having body armour or armor, as folks across the pond call it, that something had to be done. With the clam-shell iBook made of kevlar it seemed obvious to effectively just wear on on the front and one on the back. I never did get time to work on that properly…. 

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