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Jeff Beck – 1/2023

Geoffrey Arnold “Jeff” Beck was born on 24 June 1944 in Wallington, South London to Arnold and Ethel Beck. Before Beck discovered guitar, his mother had wanted him to play the piano. But once his parents saw how Beck took to the guitar, they allowed it.  They probably thought, ‘If he’s got the guitar, he’s not going out stealing.’ The only friends he had were pretty low-life; most of them were one step away from jail.

Beck said that he first heard an electric guitar when he was six-years-old and heard Les Paul playing “How High the Moon” on the radio. He asked his mother what it was. After she replied it was an electric guitar and was all tricks, he said, “That’s for me”. As a ten-year-old, Beck sang in a church choir and his original musical direction was essential formed by the music his older sister, Annetta, brought home.  As a pre-teenager he learned to play on a borrowed guitar and made several attempts to build his own instrument, first by gluing and bolting together cigar boxes for the body and an un-sanded fence post for the neck with model aircraft control lines as strings and frets simply painted on it.

“The guy next door said, ‘I’ll build you a solid body guitar for five pounds’,” he later told Rock Cellar Magazine. “Five pounds, which to me was 500 back then so I went ahead and did it myself.
“The first one I built was in 1956, because Elvis was out, and everything that you heard about pop music was guitar. And then I got fascinated. I’m sure the same goes for lots of people.”

Beck’s sister Annetta introduced him to Jimmy Page when both were teenagers. Eventually, Beck bonded with another boy who was a budding guitarist in his neighborhood, Jimmy Page. The two musicians shared a passion for rockabilly music (Beck credited his older sister with buying the records that shaped his taste) and would try to impress each other with their skills. After leaving school, he attended Wimbledon College of Art. Then he was briefly employed as a painter and decorator, a groundsman on a golf course, and a car paint sprayer. In his early years he spent time in bands such as The Nightshift, the Tridents and then the Yardbirds, which he joined in 1965 to replace Eric Clapton.

The legacy of The Yardbirds three iconic guitar heroes Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page is a little bit convoluted, but Page did his best in later years to explain it in a video for Fender taped in connection to his signature Fender Telecaster, which is based on the guitar Jeff had gifted him and he used in the Yardbirds and in the early days of Led Zeppelin.

Page says he and Jeff initially connected due to their mutual interest in the guitar. Electric guitarists were a rare breed in rock and roll’s early days, he noted. “There weren’t many guitarists in the area at that point,” Page recalled. “You’d hear of other guitarists, you’d meet other guitarists, but nobody was in really close proximity to me. There was an art college at Epsom that Jeff Beck’s sister Annetta was attending.”

 Somehow Annetta heard about Page and got the idea that she should introduce her brother to the other local guitarist Page. One day, Jeff and Annetta just showed up at Page’s house. “There was a knock on the door, and there was Jeff’s sister, and there was Jeff holding his homemade guitar,” Page recalled. “We just bonded immediately.” Jeff eventually upgraded from his homemade guitar to a 1959 Fender Telecaster. Page came to possess the Tele after scoring Jeff a big break playing for the Yardbirds.

Page says he was a studio musician, working his way up to being a record producer, when he was approached about joining the Yardbirds. But he wasn’t ready to give up working in the studio, and he suspected Clapton was unaware of the conversation, so he recommended Jeff for the job. Jeff got the gig and soon bought himself a new guitar. But rather than keep his Tele as a backup, he gifted it to Page as a thank you. The Yardbirds were one of the U.K.’s biggest blues bands at that point.

Jeff Beck rose to fame as part of the Yardbirds, where he replaced Eric Clapton, before forming the Jeff Beck group with Rod Stewart.
His tone, presence and, above all, volume redefined guitar music in the 1960s, and influenced movements like heavy metal, jazz-rock and even punk. Beck earned two spots in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, in 1992 with the Yardbirds and as a solo artist in 2009. During the first induction he vented: “I have done other music after the Yardbirds, and somebody told me I should be proud tonight, but I’m not—because they kicked me out. They did. Fuck them.” Next to him, Jimmy Page, who’d eventually shared lead guitar duties with Beck during his final months with the band, burst out laughing.

Page was tapped to induct Beck into the Hall of Fame as a solo artist in 2009. “He’d just keep getting better and better and better,” Page said, recalling the records his friend began cutting after striking out on his own. “And he still had, all the way through. And he leaves us mere mortals, believe me, just wondering.” During that event Beck – said: “I play the way I do because it allows me to come up with the sickest sounds possible.”
“That’s the point now, isn’t it? I don’t care about the rules.
“In fact, if I don’t break the rules at least 10 times in every song, then I’m not doing my job properly.”

The formidable pair of guitar slingers then reunited on stage at the ceremony, dueling through “Beck’s Bolero,” an epic rock instrumental Page had composed 43 years earlier, to be Beck’s first solo recording. 

It is somehow impossible to describe the talent and musician ship of Jeff Beck. Outerwordly maybe, but then I curse myself for not having the vocabulary to do him true justice. I guess it was 1966 or 67 when I first ran into his guitar playing, when my amateur band took on Yardbirds’ songs like Heartful of Soul, For Your Love and especially “Shape of Things”. The last one in particular posed a challenge in the lead as bottlenecks were not yet on sale in our neck of the woods. I decided to use a beer bottle for the slide part, as I had seen Jeff do on TV. By the time he hooked up with Rod Stewart and Ron Wood a couple of years later, for the blues rock album “Truth”, Jeff was already in a different stratosphere. 

After the Yardbirds, Beck wielded his firepower to form the Jeff Beck Group, and was improbably joined by two more giants of rock history—singer Rod Stewart and rhythm guitarist Ronnie Wood. Even more volatile than his previous band, the Group lasted all of two albums before imploding on the eve of Woodstock.

Later came Beck, Bogert & Appice, a supergroup he created alongside former Vanilla Fudge bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice. The power trio produced one stripped-down record termed “docile” by Rolling Stone before Beck decamped. He cut an all-instrumental solo album, 1975’s Blow by Blow, which quickly went platinum.

Over the course of Beck’s solo career, seven of his 10 albums went gold. He was nominated for 16 Grammy awards, winning eight. In 2014, he was honored with the British Academy’s Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. A year later, Rolling Stone gave him the No. 5 spot on its list of 100 greatest guitarists. They had no clue.

He also collaborated with the likes of David Bowie, Tina Turner, Mick Jagger, Stevie Wonder, and Jon Bon Jovi.

His solo output slowed down, until the release of 1999’s You Had It Coming, featuring Imogen Heap on vocals, followed in 2003 by an album he simply called Jeff. Around this time, he started incorporating more electronic and hip-hop elements into his music; culminating in his fourth Grammy victory for the tempestuous, shape-shifting instrumental Plan B. He toured extensively in the 2010s, including a joint-headline venture with Beach Boy Brian Wilson.
The duo had hoped to record together but those plans fell apart. Instead, Beck ended up befriending actor Johnny Depp, with whom he released a full-length album, 18, in 2022.
But the musician’s legacy lies in the balance between the fluidity and aggression of his playing, his technical brilliance equalled only by his love of ear-crunching dissonance.
“It’s like he’s saying, ‘I’m Jeff Beck. I’m right here. And you can’t ignore me’,” wrote Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers in an essay for Rolling Stone’s Greatest Guitar Players of All Time, where Beck placed seventh. Of course Rolling Stone played to the popular ear, because really, no one could do what Jeff did on a guitar. Jeff transcended music, much in a way as Michael Jordan and Pelé did theirs.
“Even in the Yardbirds, he had a tone that was melodic but in-your-face – bright, urgent and edgy, but sweet at the same time. You could tell he was a serious player, and he was going for it. He was not holding back.”
“He’d just keep getting better and better,” Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page once recalled. “And he leaves us, mere mortals”.

Marking Beck’s death, Page tweeted, “The six stringed Warrior is no longer here for us to admire the spell he could weave around our mortal emotions. Jeff could channel music from the ethereal.”.

Jeff Beck had been sick over the Christmas Holidays and died on Tuesday, January 10, 2023 at a hospital near his home in Surrey, England. The cause of death was bacterial meningitis.

Some Tributes:

• Responding to news of his death, singer Rod Stewart called Beck “the greatest”.
Posting a picture of the pair together on Instagram, he wrote: “Jeff Beck was on another planet. He took me and Ronnie Wood to the USA in the late 60s in his band the Jeff Beck Group and we haven’t looked back since.
“He was one of the few guitarists that when playing live would actually listen to me sing and respond. Jeff, you were the greatest, my man. Thank you for everything. RIP.”

• US rock band Hollywood Vampires, comprising Johnny Depp, Alice Cooper, Joe Perry and Tommy Henriksen, also saluted “the passing of our dear friend and guitar legend”.
“Jeff’s incredible musicianship and passion for guitar has been an inspiration to us all,” the band wrote. “He was a true innovator and his legacy will live on through his music. Rest in peace, Jeff.”
Eric Clapton simply tweeted: “‘Always and ever’…….. ec”.

• Elsewhere, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page paid tribute to Beck as “the six-stringed warrior” and praised his “apparently limitless” musical imagination which could “channel music from the ethereal”.

• In another rock tribute, Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger shared a video of the pair playing together, saying music had lost “one of the greatest guitar players in the world” and “we will all miss him so much”.

• Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne said it had been “such an honor” to know and play with Beck, adding: “I can’t express how saddened I am…”

• And Queen guitarist Brian May said he was lost for words, but called Beck “the absolute pinnacle of guitar playing” and a “damn fine human being”. Then he took the opportunity to record a video praising Beck for making “possibly the most beautiful bit of guitar music ever recorded” with his track “Where Were You.” “If you want to hear his depth of emotion and sound and phrasing and the way he could touch your soul, listen to ‘Where Were You’ off the Guitar Shop album,” The Queen guitarist said in the clip. “Just Google ‘Where Were You Jeff Beck’ and sit down and listen to it for four minutes. It’s unbelievable.” “It’s possibly the most beautiful bit of guitar music ever recorded, probably alongside Jimi Hendrix‘s ‘Little Wing,’” he continued. “So sensitive, so beautiful, so incredibly creative and unlike anything you’ve ever heard anywhere else. Yes, of course he had his influences too, but he brought an amazing voice to rock music which will never, ever be emulated, or equaled.” May ended his video tribute with more praise for his fellow guitarist. “Jeff was completely and utterly unique, and the kind of musician who’s impossible to define,” he said. “And I was absolutely in awe of him.”

• Members of Kiss, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, also expressed their shock.
Simmons called the news “heartbreaking”, while Stanley said he had “blazed a trail impossible to follow. Play on now and forever”.
Singer Paul Young added in a Twitter post: “He was loved by everyone in the know; the guitarists’ guitarist!”

• “Jeff Beck has the combination of brilliant technique with personality,” the Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell wrote when Beck placed Number Five on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists. “It’s like he’s saying, ‘I’m Jeff Beck. I’m right here. And you can’t ignore me.’ Even in the Yardbirds, he had a tone that was melodic but in-your-face — bright, urgent, and edgy, but sweet at the same time. You could tell he was a serious player, and he was going for it. He was not holding back.”

On a Personal Note:

Jeff Beck didn’t have a lot of songs that resonated with the masses in the way that other guitar heroes’ songs have. HIs music was too quirky, too outside, and just plain not catchy enough for him to have become as well known among the masses as a guy like Eric Clapton, Eddie van Halen or Jimmy Page.

Jeff Beck didn’t have a song like Cocaine where you just play the first few notes and everybody instantly recognizes it.

Instead he has classics like Freeway Jam. Not as many people will recognize this song as they will Layla or Voodoo Chile, but this is less rock and roll and more jazz fusion.

Yes, that’s Jimmy Page with Jeff Beck. And others! Listen to the part where they play some of The Immigrant Song. Hearing Jeff Beck play part of the vocal melody with all the whammy bar inflections he adds is pretty cool.

Jeff Beck isn’t known like Page and Beck doesn’t have a song like Stairway To Heaven and he doesn’t have a song with the popularity of The Immigrant Song either – at least not a song where Jeff Beck gets top billing. He had People Get Ready with Rod Stewart but wasn’t exactly the most cutting edge guitar playing Beck had to offer.

I saw Jeff Beck open for Stevie Ray Vaughan on SRV’s last tour, just a few months before the helicopter crash that took his life.  I loved Stevie Ray Vaughan’s set but Jeff Beck, even for us as guitarists was a little outside for our tastes. That was extreme though. He was really doing some real unusual stuff that night with the vibrato bar, intentionally bending notes out of tune just by micro-tones, and I guess Jeff Beck loved doing that, but while I have a ton of respect for him as a musician, I can understand why there were so many more kids trying to be like Eddie Van Halen than trying to be like Jeff Beck. Of course, if a kid wanted to try to be play like Jeff Beck, the big problem is: Where do you start? What would “playing like Jeff Beck” even call for? The concept is so nebulous! Play outside notes, sure, but which outside notes?

While I obviously didn’t always fully appreciate what he was artistically going for all the time, I’m glad that I got to see Jeff Beck play. He was and is a legend and will always be considered as one the best at what he did. Rest in Peace Jeff.

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Dino Danelli – 12/2022

Dino Danelli – (The Young Rascals) was born July 23, 1944 into an Italian American family in Jersey City, New Jersey. Danelli trained as a jazz drummer in his early years. Barely a teenager he played with Lionel Hampton and (by 1961) was playing R&B in New Orleans. He returned to New York in 1962 with a band called Ronnie Speeks & the Elrods. Later he also worked at times with such legendary performers as Little Willie John.

Dino was a prodigy from the Jersey City-Hoboken area, making the scene in his early teens, learning from the jazz greats like Krupa and Buddy Rich who played regularly at the Metropole, a very adult Club in New York City where the management took a shine to the young star-in-the-making and set him up with a cot in a dressing room years before he made it big. “They had vision, knew something was going to happen for me.” Young Dino held a daytime gig at the Metropole with a rock and roll band, travelled to New Jersey sometimes at night with his drum kit, performed with Lionel Hampton when he was fifteen years of age. “I was watching these people like a sponge, absorbing it all. I was into music, women, the normal rock and roll vibe, watching the jazz players at night, going down to the Village. Agents would call up say ‘I need three guys, four sets, $25 a man.’ I would pick up guys—we all knew the same songs, people weren’t writing a lot back then—we were playing top 40 and R & B obscurities. One of the guitarists was Jimmy James. He went to England and became Jimi Hendrix.” After a while, Dino went to New Orleans, came back to New York, met Felix Cavaliere, joined him for a gig in Las Vegas, returned to New York and with Gene and Eddie, the Young Rascals were born.-

A clearing house for local Italian musicians in northern New Jersey at the time, was the rock group Joey Dee and the Starliters (global hits with ‘Shout’, where Cornish, Cavaliere and Brigati did ‘internships’.
Danelli first met Eddie Brigati (a pickup singer on the local R&B circuit) and Felix Cavaliere (a classically trained pianist) in 1963. Later that year, Danelli and Cavaliere traveled to Las Vegas to try their luck with a casino house band the Scotties and backed up singer Sandu Scott and her Scottys. Sandu Scott was a singer who was going to Las Vegas and coming through New York looking for a back-up band. As Dino recalled, “well Vegas is happening, there’s money in it, let’s go. So, we got aboard and went out there. Right at that time, the Beatles had just broke. We heard that and said we’ve got to do what those guys are doing. This is fabulous.”

“Felix and I had met in New York in late ’63 or ’64. We wanted to work with each other, ’cause we’d heard about each other’s playing. Around those days, word traveled really quick about happening musicians. The circle was quite small. So, he had come to see me play and we hit it off.”

They remained in Vegas until February 1964, but then ventured back to New York City where later in 1964, Danelli teamed with Cavaliere, Brigati and a Canadian-born guitarist named Gene Cornish to form the Young Rascals.

They debuted as the Young Rascals at the Choo Choo Club in Garfield, New Jersey.
Before Cavaliere and Brigati began composing original music), Danelli and Cavaliere often scouted new repertory that the group could perform. In a 1988 interview, he cited their trips to record stores as yielding such songs as “Mustang Sally” and “Good Lovin’.” Dino Danelli was with the Young Rascals, later changing their name to Rascals for seven years (1965–1972).

In the beginning we were doing covers. At the time, we weren’t writing at all. We had no originals. “I Ain’t Gonna Eat My Heart Out Anymore” was written by Pam Sawyer and Laurie Burton. They were writing for Motava at that point, I think. They were just freelancing and we found that song. We had thought of trying to start to write, but there were so many things going on. We didn’t sit down and go into studios, like we did later on. Myself and Felix used to go into little record shops, that’s where we found “Good Lovin”. We found 2 or 3 other songs in record shops – “Mustang Sally”, “Temptation Out To Get Me”, all strong songs in our show. Then, after “Good Lovin”, we got into the studio and started writing heavily. It all started to happen then.”

The songwriting partnership between Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati began to flourish. Cavaliere wrote the music and themes, and Brigati, the verses with the former’s help. Their second album, Collections, had four Cavaliere/Brigati songs and two Cornish originals in its eleven tracks.

Between 1966 and 1968 the act embraced soul music, reaching the top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 with nine singles, including the #1s “Good Lovin'” (1966), “Groovin'” (1967), and “People Got to Be Free” (1968), as well as big radio hits such as the much-covered “How Can I Be Sure?” (#4 1967) and “A Beautiful Morning” (#3 1968), plus another critical favorite “A Girl Like You” (#10 1967), becoming one of the best known examples of the blue-eyed soul genre, along with the Righteous Brothers.
The Young Rascals officially became the Rascals with the release of their third long player, the concept album ‘Once Upon A Dream‘ in 1967 which also launched Dino Danelli as a visual artist.

His visual artistic talent came about in a kind of metaphysical fashion. While Dino was ensconced in his apartment creating, quite literally boxes of dreams, Felix and Eddie were writing songs for the album, the Rascals answer to Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The band stayed popular for another couple of years, especially in Canada, but as their musical direction turned more R&B and Jazz, the music world turned to hard rock and metal.
During the years the Rascals sold some 40 million records, accumulating 13 Gold and 2 Platinum albums in the process and an induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

By early 1972 it was all over and along with Cornish, Danelli formed the group Bulldog who produced two albums before disbanding in 1975. Danelli joined the Leslie West Band (West) for a short time along with bassist Busta Jones. Danelli and Cornish then joined the group Fotomaker in 1978 (initially with ex-Raspberries member Wally Bryson). By 1980, Danelli joined Steven Van Zandt as a member of Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul. Van Zandt and Springsteen were early fans of the Young Rascals.

“1980 was actually the beginning with Steven. And we didn’t go out and start working ’till the end of 1981. I’m still with Steven actually. We’ve gone to Europe a lot in the last six years. I’m his art director. I do all his graphic work, his album covers, mostly in Europe, ’cause he doesn’t get released here like he gets released in Europe.”

After performing with Cavaliere and Cornish at the Atlantic Records 40th Anniversary concert on 14 May 1988, there was a short-lived Rascals reunion tour later that year without Brigati, apparently because of some disagreements between Brigati and Cavaliere. But all four original members came together to perform at their induction by Steven van Zandt,into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 and then once again on 24 April 2010, for the Kristen Ann Carr Fund dinner at the Tribeca Grill in Tribeca, New York City.
He reunited once again with his bandmates. The Rascals appeared at the Capital Theater in Port Chester, New York for six shows in December 2012 and for fifteen dates at the Richard Rogers Theatre on Broadway (15 April – 5 May 2013). Their production, entitled ‘Once Upon A Dream’, toured North America (Toronto, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix, Chicago, Detroit, Rochester, and New York City). It was produced by long-time Rascals fans, Steven Van Zandt and his wife Maureen.

Danelli was also a visual artist, based at DinoDanelliArt.com, and designed album covers for The Rascals and Little Steven & the Disciples of Soul.

Dino Danelli, the first real rock drummer, died from congestive heart failure and other heart related disease on December 15, 2022.
Danelli’s friend and band archivist Joe Russo shared the news on the drummer’s official Facebook page, sharing an extensive message about his health issues and “primary challenges” of coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure.

“To know Dino, you must understand that art was his life,” Russo wrote. “Art, music and film consumed his mind and his heart. He was an insomniac, sometimes staying awake for days, because he was always writing, reading, painting, drawing, watching films. He was beyond private and for someone who many consider one of the greatest drummers of all time, humble to a fault.”

He has been called “one of the great unappreciated rock drummers in history”. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 with the (Young) Rascals.

The End of an Era

Dino Danelli totally changed rock n’ roll drumming. Before him it was the paradiddle musings on guys like Ron Wilson of The Surfaris or Sandy Nelson. Both great, but mainly driven by the snare heavy prominence of high school marching bands. Dino’s twirling was great but his KICK changed everything.  Suddenly the ballsy kick heavy drummers from NJ, the Bronx and Long Island followed in his wake. Guys like Carmine Appice, John Barbata and Tom Scarpinato. If you were at any concerts at the NY State World’s Fair in 1964-65 you saw the change. This time around the Brits followed us with heavy kick players like Bonham, Baker and the vastly underrated B.J. Wilson. Every week it seems we are calling it the “end of an era”, but Dino’s passing truly is one. After Dino came Ginger Baker, the drum solo. But Ginger’s dead too. So many of them are already gone, with more on the way. If you didn’t see them, you never will.
Rock and roll is a hard mistress. What seems like forever is really just a few years long. When you’re young you think these bands will last forever. But few do. Except for the superstars, the rest go on to straight jobs, or die prematurely. It’s weird, without education or experience so many end up doing manual labor. They were our heroes, and now…

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Glenn Schwartz 11/2018

Glenn Schwartz, torn between rock and religionNovember 3, 2018 – Glenn Schwartz (the James Gang) was born on March 20, 1940 in Cleveland Ohio. While in Los Angeles on tour with the James Gang in 1967, Schwartz strolled onto the infamous Sunset Strip and stopped next to a small group of people listening to street preacher Arthur Blessitt, according to Stevenson’s book. Some time later he professed conversion to Christianity, saying “I was finally blessed by mercy for I heard the Gospel of Christ.”

Following his conversion, his zealous, new-found faith was not accepted well by the band, his family or his friends. As per Stevenson, Schwartz said: “I had some Christian friends who had some round stickers that read ‘Real Peace Is In Jesus’ and we stuck those all over our clothes … We put some on Janis Joplin but she didn’t like it and took them off. I remember she got pretty upset. Continue reading Glenn Schwartz 11/2018

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Wayne Cochran 11/2017

November 21, 2017 – Wayne Cochran (The CC Riders) was born Talvin Wayne Cochran near Macon, Georgia, and grew up in roughly the same environs his idol James Brown and friend Otis Redding had, be it on the other side of the tracks.

After getting his start with various rock’n’roll outfits, in 1959 Cochran cut his first disc and the next five years would witness a succession of releases, most of which only made regional noise at best. One item however, would ultimately become Cochran’s greatest success, though in someone else’s hands. His lightly morbid but undeniably catchy original ‘Last Kiss’ hit the top of the charts in the summer of 1964 in a faithful treatment by Texans J. Frank Wilson & The Cavaliers. This classic “death disc” has since been covered by many, not least Pearl Jam, so at least the healthy royalties from whose versions, would come as an unforeseen blessing for Cochran in later years.

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Don Covay 1/2015

Don CovayJanuary 31, 2015 – Don Covay was born Donald Randolph in Orangeburg, South Carolina on March 24, 1938. Covay was the son of a Baptist preacher who died when his son was eight. The family soon after relocated to Washington, D.C., where he and his siblings formed a gospel group dubbed the Cherry Keys; while in middle school, however, some of Covay’s classmates convinced him to make the leap to secular music, and in 1953 he joined the Rainbows, a local doo wop group that previously enjoyed a national smash with “Mary Lee.”

By the time Covay joined the Rainbows the original lineup had long since splintered, and his recorded debut with the group, 1956’s “Shirley,” was not a hit. He stuck around for one more single, “Minnie,” before exiting; contrary to legend, this iteration of the Rainbows did not include either a young Marvin Gaye or Billy Stewart, although both fledgling singers did occasionally fill in for absent personnel during live performances.

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Lee Hazlewood 8/2007

August 4, 2007 – Barton Lee Hazlewood (These Boots Are Made for Walkin’) was born on July 9, 1929 in Mannford, Oklahoma. The son of an oil man, he spent most of his youth living between Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, and Louisiana. He grew up listening to pop and bluegrass music. He spent his teenage years in Port Neches, Texas, where he was exposed to a rich Gulf Coast music tradition. He studied for a medical degree at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

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Laurel Aitken 7/2005

July 17, 2005 – Laurel Aitken/Lorenzo Aitken (the Godfather of Ska) was born in Cuba of mixed Cuban and Jamaican descent on April 22nd 1927. His family settled in Jamaica in 1938 and he went on to become Jamaica’s first real recording star.

His first recordings in the late 1950s were mento tunes such as “Nebuchnezer”, “Sweet Chariot” and “Baba Kill Me Goat”. Progressing to a pre-ska shuffle, his 1958 single “Little Sheila”/”Boogie in My Bones” was one of the first records produced by Chris Blackwell, who founded his Island Records label that year, and the first Jamaican popular music record to be released in the UK.

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