Today In Music, January 27th
From the Rockmine Almanac for today (Tuesday, 27th January):
Birth
1961. Gillian Gilbert (New Order) born in Manchester, England.
On Tour
1977. Patti Smith falls fifteen feet from the stage at a gig in Tampa, Florida. She fractures the seventh vertebrae in her neck and requires 22 stitches.
In Court
1992. Country singer Sydney Devine is fined £ 75 and has 3 penalty points added to his driving licence at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court. Although he was not in court, the singer admitted driving at 79 m.p.h. on a 60 m.p.h. stretch of the A77 on October 24th last year.
In Hospital
1984. Michael Jackson‘s hair catches fire during the filming of a Pepsi advert. He is rushed to the Cedars Sinai Medical Center suffering second and third degree burns to the scalp. Media interest in the story forces hospital authorities to move Jackson to Brotman Memorial Hospital for treatment.
On Television
2006. The Ellen Degeneres Show. (Syndicated, U.S.A.). Guests include Heather Headley who performs “In My Mind”
Death
1967. Italian pop singer Luigi Tenco shoots himself in a fit of depression having been eliminated from the finals of the San Remo Festival. Police say the 27 year old took his life with a single pistol shot to the head. He left a suicide note saying he had “devoted the best years of my life to singing and writing songs” and was doing this “as an act of protest against the public and the jury” for their selections for the final. Tenco was not alone. Some big names including Marianne Faithfull never made it into the final.
Babble
It’s odd how differently we see things as the years pass. Browsing old copies of Melody maker for TV listings, I came across news of a blanket radio and TV ban on a Parlophone single. Titled “Nothing Better To Do”, it was released on July 3rd, 1964, and took the mickey out of mods and rockers. The wording suggested that they had nothing better to do than invade towns.
Whether the broadcasters thought it would be a call to arms for the two factions is unclear but ABC-TV, producers of “Thank Your Lucky Stars” said, “The record is not in the best interests of the general public”. MM merely said “the BBC have shunned the disc”.
Odd then, to think that the artist singing the song would later go on to become a much-loved national institution within the BBC – Bill Oddie OBE.
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