December 13, 2017 – Warrel Dane (Sanctuary/Nevermore) was born on March 7, 1961 as Warrel G. Baker in Seattle, Washington.
Warell, who first came to fame as the high-pitched singer of Serpent’s Knight, was famed for his vocal range and had originally trained for five years as an opera singer and utilized a very broad vocal range, spanning from notes as low as the G♯ below low C, or G♯1, to notes as high as the B♭ below soprano C, or B♭5. While his high head voice style vocals were much more prominent in the older Sanctuary albums, there were instances where he utilized it in Nevermore as well. Later in his career, Dane became more notable for his distinctively deep, dramatic voice. He cited Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Jefferson Airplane, Simon & Garfunkel, The Beatles, The Doors as his musical influences and Ronnie James Dio, Rob Halford, Bruce Dickinson as his main vocal inspirations. Continue reading Warrel Dane 12/2017
September 18, 2017 – Mark Selby was born in September 2, 1961. Born and raised in Enid, Oklahoma, Selby spent his youth harvesting wheat and playing in bands throughout the Midwest before moving to Hays, Kansas to attend Fort Hays University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in music.
He was musically gifted in three ways: as a songwriter, a singer with a soulful voice and a guitarist with some impressive chops. His future as a blues rock singer-songwriter, guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and producer started in Germany, where he signed as a solo artist to ZYX Records. Continue reading Mark Selby 9/2017
September 13, 2017 – GrantHart (Hüsker Dü) was born in St. Paul, MN on March 18, 1961 and at the age of 10, he inherited his older brother’s drum set and records, after he was killed by a drunk driver. Hart described his family as a “typical American dysfunctional family. Not very abusive, though. Nothing really to complain about.” He soon began playing in a number of makeshift bands throughout high school. Continue reading Grant Hart 9/2017
March 12, 2013 – Clive Burr (Iron Maiden drummer) was born in London on March 8th 1957.
Previously a member of Samson, he joined Iron Maiden in ’79. An acquaintance of then-Iron Maiden guitarist Dennis Stratton, he played on their first 3 records: Iron Maiden, Killers and their breakthrough release The Number of the Beast, but left the band in 1982 due to Iron Maiden’s tour schedule and his personal health problems. Clive co-wrote one song on The Number of the Beast, “Gangland”, and another song, “Total Eclipse”, that was cut from the album and showed up as the b-side of the “Run to the Hills” single, and later on the Number Of The Beast remastered CD re-release. He also appeared on “The Number of the Beast” and “Run To The Hills” videos.
June 16, 2010 – Garry Marshall Shider (Parliament-Funkadelic) was born on July 24th 1953 in Plainfield New Jersey. A
Like many funk pioneers of the ’70s, Shider got his start by playing in church. As a teenager, he sang and performed in support of the Mighty Clouds Of Joy, Shirley Caesar, and other prominent gospel artists. Years later, singing far-out funk with Parliament, that gospel spirit was still evident in his vocal performances. He was still bringing them to church — only that church was located somewhere in deep innerspace.
Shider met George Clinton in the late ’60s at the famous Plainfield barbershop where the Parliaments, then primarily a soul vocal group, practiced harmonies. Shider’s vocal and instrumental talent impressed Clinton.
By the time he was sixteen, Shider wished to escape the crime and dead-end prospects of Plainfield, so he and his friend Cordell “Boogie” Mosson left for Canada where Shider and Mosson formed a funk/rock band called United Soul, or “U.S.”. George Clinton was living in Toronto at the time and began hearing about United Soul from people in the local music business and took the band under his wing upon learning that Shider was a member.
January 28, 2009 – William Norris “Billy” Powell was born on June 3rd 1952 in Corpus Christi, Texas. Powell grew up in a military family and spent several of his childhood years in Italy, where his father was stationed with the U.S. Navy. After his father died of cancer in 1960, the Powells returned to the United States to settle in Jacksonville, Florida. In elementary school, Powell met Leon Wilkeson, who would become a lifelong friend and the bassist for Lynyrd Skynyrd. Powell took an interest in piano and he began taking piano lessons from a local teacher named Madalyn Brown, who claimed that Billy did not need a teacher as he was a natural and picked things up well on his own.
December 16, 2007 – Daniel Grayling “Dan” Fogelberg was born on August 13, 1951 in Peoria, Illinois into a musical family; his father being a high school band director and his mother a classically trained pianist.
So it comes as no surprise Dan’s first instrument, at a very early age, was the piano but he soon took an interest in the Hawaiian slide guitar and when his grandfather presented him with one, he spent hour upon hour teaching himself the skills.
This, combined with his admiration for The Beatles, he taught himself electric guitar and by the age of 13 he had joined his first band, a Beatles cover band, The Clan. This stint was followed by a band called The Coachmen, which in 1967 released two singles “Maybe Time Will Let Me Forget” and “Don’t Want To Lose Her”.
With his third band Frankie and the Aliens he started touring with covering the blues masters .. such as Muddy Waters and the rock of Cream.
October 4, 2005 – Mike Gibbins (Badfinger) was born on March 12th 1949. He was the left-handed Welsh drummer who became a member of the Iveys, later renamed Badfinger, after “Badfinger Boogie”, an unused title for a Lennon-McCartney composition.
He helped form The Iveys in 1965 and his powerful playing helped push the Iveys to a new level of proficiency and by the end of the year the group was being booked as an opening act for local appearances by the likes of the Who, the Yardbirds, the Moody Blues, and the Spencer Davis Group and was a popular attraction on the London club scene.
February 8, 2005- Keith Knudsen (Doobie Brothers) was born in Le Mars, Iowa on February 18th 1948. He began drumming while in high school. After short stints playing in a club band and the Blind Joe Mendlebaum Blues Band, he became the drummer for the organist-vocalist Lee Michaels.
In 1974 he was invited to join The Doobie Brothers, joining the band during the recording of the 1974 platinum album, ‘What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits‘, on which he made his debut. After the Doobies disbanded in ’82, he and fellow Doobie John McFee, who he had also formed a writing partnership with, founded the country rock band Southern Pacific. The group was successful in the country charts but disbanded in the early 1990s. By then the two men had formed a writing partnership and despite not rejoining the group at that time, co-wrote the song Time Is Here And Gone with Doobies’ percussionist Bobby LaKind, featured on the Doobies reunion album Cycles in 1989.
August 6, 2004 – Rick James was born James Ambrose Johnson, Jr on February 1st 1948 in Buffalo, New York. He was one of eight children. James’ father, an autoworker, left the family when James was ten. His mother was a dancer for Katherine Dunham, and later ran errands for the Mafia to earn a living. James’ mother would take him on her collecting route, and it was in bars where she worked that James got to see performers such as John Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Etta James perform.
When he found himself ordered to Vietnam in 1965, he fled for Toronto, where he made friendships with then-local musicians Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. To avoid being caught by military authorities, James went under the assumed name, “Ricky James Matthews”. That same year, James formed the Mynah Birds, a band that produced a fusion of soul, folk and rock music. The band briefly recorded for the Canadian division of Columbia Records, releasing the single, “Mynah Bird Hop”/”Mynah Bird Song”.
January 28, 2004 –Mel Pritchard was born in Oldham, Lancashire, England on January 20th 1948.
Mel and lifelong friend Les Holroyd were together at Derker Secondary Modern school where they joined a school band, then went on to form Heart and Soul and Oldham blues-rock band called The Wickeds. The band gained a good reputation playing semi-professional gigs. After adding two members from a rival band, the Keepers, the group emerged as Barclay James Harvest in 1966.
November 19, 2003 – Greg Ridley was born October 23, 1947 played bass with Spooky Tooth and Humble Pie. Born in Carlisle in 1947, Greg Ridley joined his first group in the early Sixties. He was Dino in a short-lived outfit called Dino and the Danubes before teaming up with his old schoolfriend Mike Harrison (on vocals and piano) in the Ramrods.
By 1965, the pair had joined the VIP’s, led by the guitarist Luther Grosvenor, and recorded three singles (“Wintertime” for CBS and “I Wanna Be Free” and “Straight Down to the Bottom” on the Island label). “In the early days, I thought if we made the bright lights of London from Carlisle, we’d made it,” Ridley would joke. The VIP’s became Art for a cover of the Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” retitled “What’s That Sound” and the 1967 album Supernatural Fairy Tales.
The following year, the American singer and organist Gary Wright joined the line-up, the band changed its name to Spooky Tooth and released the albums It’s All About a Roundabout and Spooky Two. However, Ridley was unhappy and jumped at the chance to assist Steve Marriott in his new venture alongside Peter Frampton.
September 7, 2003 – Warren Zevon was born January 24, 1947. He never made it into the mainstream popularity, but the in-crowd knew him as a prolific songwriter/singer/musician, noted for his offbeat, sardonic view on life which was reflected in his dark, often painfully humorous songs, which sometimes incorporated political and/or historical themes and personas.
He worked with a huge list of mega artists. To give an idea on his stretch here is an anecdotal paragraph.
By September 1975, Zevon had returned to Los Angeles (from Spain), where he roomed with then-unknown Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. There, he collaborated with Jackson Browne, who in 1976 produced and promoted Zevon’s self-titled major-label debut.
March 26, 2002 – Joe Schermie (Three Dog Night) was born Joseph Edward Schermetzler on February 12th 1946 in Menasha near Madison, Wisconsin.
Joe grew up in a musical family. His parents were both in vaudeville and when they finally left the road to settle, they bought a nightclub in Madison. Joe and his sister, Judy, would sneak in and watch the shows. Outside of the club, the Schermetzler family spent many hours singing and performing together at home – each taking a different instrument and/or singing. Joe, himself, learned to play drums and then bass.
After Joe’s family relocated to Phoenix, Arizona, to facilitate to his mother’s health, Joe started hanging with various bands in the area. Along the line, he was introduced to Cory Wells, and, eventually, Joe was able to bring his good friend, Michael Allsup, into the new musical project called Three Dog Night,(the name was chosen because Aborigines slept with their dogs for warmth and a bitterly cold night was a “three dog night”), which would also include Jimmy Greenspoon, Danny Hutton, Floyd Sneed, and Chuck Negron. Joe’s destinctive, hard-driving bass lines can be heard in all the 21 biggest hits by the band up to 1973, when he was the first to leave the band
Disillusioned with his role in the group, he left the band in ’73 and in the years after leaving Three Dog Night, Joe performed with various famous recording artists both in and out of the studio. In the studio, he recorded with Kim Fowley on his “Outrageous” album and Stephen Stills on his “Stills” album. Joe also went out on the road with Yvonne Elliman in support of her hit single, “If I Can’t Have You,” and he ventured into production with his first effort being that of Gayle McCormick’s first solo, self-titled, album after leaving the hit-making group, “Smith.”
In 1976 he formed a group ‘S.S.Fools’ (after the Three Dog Night album Seven Separate Fools) that included former members of Three Dog Night, Michael Allsup and Floyd Sneed and later Toto vocalist Bobby Kimball, as well as Stan Seymore and Wayne Devilliers and they recorded an album on Columbia Records. But by the end of the seventies the band was history.
The 1990s were also a good time for Joe. He thoroughly enjoyed playing live and joined Chuck Negron on stage for a few shows, becoming a member of Chuck’s band for a brief time around 1997. Not long after that, he joined good friend, Floyd Sneed, in the formation of a rock group called “K.A.T.T.” (Katt and the Time Trippers) and, with the band, recorded his last album – a self-titled effort.
From the very early days, Joe always had a troll doll proudly displayed at the top of the neck of his bass. Through the years, those dolls would be stolen or lost, but he would always replace them. He never told anyone why they were there – not even his sister! The unique “dancing” he did while he was playing was a style he picked up from another family member early in his life.
Joe appeared on the cooking show Food Rules in 2000 with original Three Dog Night drummer Floyd Sneed.
Joe Schermie died unexpectedly of a heart attack on March 26, 2002 at the age of 56.
Three Dog Night founding bassist Joe Schermie was their soul-inspired harmonic bedrock: always in the pocket, rendering all the right notes with a diversity of rhythmic variations, and allowing space within the songs for their remarkable triumvirate of singers to shine. Joe was a true finesse player with a rock ‘n’ roll edge: a rarity for LA studio cats in those days.
February 7, 2000 – David Jack “Dave” Peverett aka Lonesome Dave (Foghat) was born April 16, 1943 in Dulwich, South East London.
In the formative pre-Beatles early Sixties, he was the vocalist and lead guitarist of The Nocturnes, which included his brother John Peverett (later to be Rod Stewart’s road manager, before becoming a Baptist pastor in the USA) on drums, and Brixton neighbour Al “Boots” Collins (later to be editor of tourist magazines in the West Indies and Middle East) on tenor sax. The Nocturnes achieved London popularity as a pub and club band and provided backing for other performers at a recording studio in Soho.
Then, after a brief tour with Swiss blues band, Les Questions, Dave joined Savoy Brown as a rhythm guitarist, eventually also taking over as lead singer and adding the nickname Lonesome Dave. After five albums with Savoy Brown, he decided to pursue his own path, along with drummer Roger Earl and taking bassist Tony Stevens with them.
April 9, 1999 – ColinWilliam Manley was born 16 April 1942, in Old Swan, Liverpool, Lancashire which uniquely qualified him in age and geographically to become part of the British Invasion. In 1958 as guitarist and vocalist together with Don Andrew he founded the The Remo Quartet, changing their name to the Remo Four in the summer of 1959. Andrew and Manley were in the same class at school (Liverpool Institute for Boys) as Paul McCartney.
April 17, 1998 – Linda Louise, Lady McCartney (Wings) was born Linda Eastman on September 24, 1941 in New York City. Prior to marrying Paul, she was a professional photographer of celebrities and contemporary musicians, with her work published in music industry magazines. Her photos were also published in the book, Linda McCartney’s Sixties: Portrait of an Era, in 1992.
July 1, 1995 – Wolfman Jack was born Robert Weston Smith on January 21st 1938 in Brooklyn, New York.
He got his big break when he became a “gofer” at Paramount and began his radio career in 1960 at WYOU in Newport News, Virginia, where he developed his first radio name, Daddy Jules, a tribute to the influence that black DJs had on him in his formative years such as Dr. Jive, Jockey Jack, Professor Bob and Sugar Daddy. He was a fan of disc jockey Alan Freed, the ultimate deejay of New York radio, who helped to turn African-American rhythm and blues into Caucasian rock and roll music. Freed originally called himself the Moondog after New York City street musician Moondog. Freed both adopted this name and used a recorded howl to give his early broadcasts a unique character. Continue reading Wolfman Jack 7/1995
August 14, 1958 – Big Bill Broonzy, (real nameLee Conly Bradley) was born either on June 26th 1893 or 1898 or even 1903 . Like with any of the true blues musician of the early days, there is a lot of unproven claims about names, dates of birth and even location of births. Big Bill’s story was no different.
Despite years of research, the details of William Lee Conley Broonzy’s birth date remain problematic. He may have been born on 26 June 1893 – the date of birth he often gave – or according to Bill’s twin sister Laney, it may have been in 1898. Laney claimed to have documents to prove that. However, definitive research undertaken by Bob Reisman has changed the picture.
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