Eddie Money was born Edward Joseph Mahoney in Manhattan, New York City on March 21, 1949, to a large family of Irish Catholic descent. His parents were Dorothy Elizabeth (née Keller), a homemaker, and Daniel Patrick Mahoney, a police officer. He grew up in Levittown, New York, but spent some teenage years in Woodhaven, Queens, New York City. Money was a street singer from the age of eleven. As a teenager, he played in rock bands, in part to get dates from cheerleaders. He was thrown out of one high school for forging a report card. In 1967, he graduated from Island Trees High School.
At the age of 18, he tried to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather, father, and brother as a New York City Police Department trainee. However, after working as a clerk and typist, he left in 1968 to pursue a career in music, as the police did not allow him to grow his hair long. “I couldn’t see myself in a police uniform for 20 years of my life, with short hair,” he later said. His bandmates also fired him because they did not want a police officer in the group. His father was not happy with his decision to play music and tore Jimi Hendrix posters from his wall. He never lost sight of his blue-collar upbringing however and even at the height of his career with all the celebrity, millions of albums sold, and large sums of money he made, was one of the few artists who never changed. His ego was always in check, he remained a regular guy–someone you’d really have fun hanging out with. And he treated anyone he met, in any walk of life, exactly the same, with big respect.
‘Once he was traveling with a local music rep in New York–they were late for a radio interview and speeding on the Long Island Expressway. They were pulled over by the cops and it turns out one of the policemen was a guy who was a classmate of Eddie’s when they went through the Police Academy together. “Hey Eddie, you knucklehead, what are you doin’?!! Come on, I’ll give you guys a police escort!” That kind of fun luck used to happen a lot for Eddie.’
He began studying saxophone during a brief stint at junior college, inspired by rock musicians like David Bowie and Van Morrison who occasionally used the instrument.
In 1968, Money moved to Berkeley, California. There, he studied with vocal coach Judy Davis, and took on the stage name Eddie Money, dropping two letters from his last name and sarcastically referring to the fact that he was always broke.
Over the course of the next 8 years, Money became a regular performer at clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area. After gaining the attention of Bill Graham, he secured a recording contract with Columbia Records, releasing his debut album in 1977. He charted with singles such as “Baby Hold On” and “Two Tickets to Paradise”, about visiting his girlfriend despite not having money.
In 1978, Money opened for Santana at Boston’s Music Hall. The following year, he sang backing vocals on the bridge section on “I’m Alright”, a song written and performed by Kenny Loggins. In 2014, Money claimed that Loggins never gave him credit for his contribution.
His ascend started with “Baby Hold On.” The lyrics were not intellectual enough for the cognoscenti. But the music was undeniable, you heard it once and got it whereas so much vaunted stuff, then and now, you listen to over and over again and still don’t get.
Then came “Two Tickets To Paradise.”
Now that was a smash right out of the box. Great title, great track, great, emphatic chorus:
“I’ve got two tickets to paradise, Won’t you pack your bags, we’ll leave tonight”
This was 1978. When airline travel was still expensive. When you didn’t hop on a plane to go to a show or a game, you were stuck at home, dreaming, of what could possibly be, and Eddie Money was opening the top of your brain and filling you with hope
In 1982, Money took advantage of the MTV music video scene with his humorous narrative videos for “Think I’m in Love”, performed at The Mission Inn Hotel & Spa, and “Shakin'”. In the early 1980s, he appeared on The Midnight Special, Fridays, and Solid Gold. In 1978 and 1984, he appeared on American Bandstand.
Money’s career slumped temporarily following the commercially unsuccessful 1983 album Where’s the Party?. However, he made a comeback in 1986 with the album Can’t Hold Back, which received a music recording certification of platinum. “Take Me Home Tonight”, a single from the album, peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States. Money only agreed to perform the song—which included a line from “Be My Baby”, a song Ronnie Spector performed as part of The Ronettes—after Spector agreed to sing the line herself. In 1987, Money was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for “Take Me Home Tonight”. “I Wanna Go Back” and “Endless Nights”—two other singles from the Can’t Hold Back album—peaked at No. 14 and No. 21, respectively.
In 1988, Money released Nothing to Lose, which featured the Top 10 hit “Walk on Water” and the Top 40 hit “The Love in Your Eyes”.
It was 1992, “Unplugged” was flourishing on the now totally dominant MTV. Not that Eddie Money was cool enough to be featured, but he released his own acoustic live album, that positively ROCKED! “Unplug it in”.
“Gimme Some Water,” the opening cut. This was an album track from Money’s mostly hitless second LP “Life For The Taking.” Oh, “Maybe I’m A Fool” made it to number 22 on the singles chart, but at this point no one was listening to Top Forty, AOR ruled, and you didn’t need a pop hit to go platinum, as “Life For The Taking” did.
Also beginning in 1992, Money opened the summer concert season for the Pine Knob Music Theater in Clarkston, Michigan where he would return to open the venue for 27 consecutive years. In 1996, he wrote the theme music to Quack Pack, a Disney cartoon.
Money was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2008. In January 2010, he performed a medley of his hit singles during the halftime performance at the Liberty Bowl.
Eddie was a natural frontman and his original guitar player Jimmy Lyon played a role like Ronnie Wood did for Rod Stewart in the Faces – together they killed it onstage. Eddie was a very funny guy with quick wit and often the dumbest jokes.
In the beginning, he was a wild man like many rockers. On his first radio promotional tour he was going to be traveling with Warren Williams, a legendary Columbia rep for the western region. Eddie asked Warren to stop at a local liquor store, “Hey Warren, I just want to run in and get a pack of cigarettes.” About twenty minutes later Eddie emerged with a giant case full of Whiskey, Vodka, Tequila, and Gin – “OK, I’m ready now.”
In later years he toured as a classic rock act with his daughter and other family members in his band. He used to joke–“It’s like the Partridge Family, only with marijuana!”
Money wrote and performed original songs for the films Americathon (1979), Over the Top, Back to the Beach (both 1987), and Kuffs (1992), along with the television series Hardball (1989–1990).
Eddie Money died on Sep. 13, 2019. He was 70 years old.
In the three days following Money’s death, fans streamed “Take Me Home Tonight” more than 3.1 million times, which was an increase of 349 percent compared to the previous three-day period. Fans also streamed his other songs by 931 percent more than the three previous days.
Peter Tork (The Monkees) was born Peter Halsten Thorkelson on February 13, 1942 in Washington DC. His father John taught economics at the University of Connecticut. He began studying piano at the age of nine, showing an aptitude for music by learning to play several different instruments, including the banjo, French horn and both acoustic bass and guitars. Tork attended Windham High School in Willimantic, Connecticut, and was a member of the first graduating class at E. O. Smith High School in Storrs, Connecticut. He attended Carleton College in Minnesota but, after flunking out, moved to New York City, where he became part of the folk music scene in Greenwich Village and with his guitar and five-string banjo he began playing small folk clubs. He billed himself as Tork, a nickname handed down by his father, and reportedly played with members of the soon-to-be formed band Lovin’ Spoonful (Summer in the City). While there, he befriended other up-and-coming musicians such as Stephen Stills (Crosby, Stills Nash and Young).When Tork “failed to break open the folk circuit,” as he later phrased it, he moved to Long Beach, California in mid-1965. Later that summer, he fielded two calls from his friend Stephen Stills (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young), who had auditioned with more than 400 others for the Monkees. Stills urged Tork to try out. “They told Steve, ‘Your hair and teeth aren’t photogenic, but do you know anyone who looks like you that can sing?’ And Steve told them about me,” Tork told the Washington Post in 1983.
November 9, 2017 – Hans Vermeulen (Sandy Coast) was born on September 18, 1947 in Voorburg, the Hague in the Netherlands. He grew up in what was to become the birthplace of Nederpop, which produced bands like Golden earring (Radar Love) and Shocking Blue (Venus), Q 65, Rob Hoeke and many others.
July 21, 2017 – Kenny Shields was born in 1947 in the farming community of Nokomis, Saskatchewan, Canada. His passion for music and entertaining emerged at the age of six when he entered and won an amateur talent show. While continuing his interest in music and singing, upon graduation from secondary school he moved to Saskatoon to attend university but was immediately recruited by the city’s premiere band – Witness Incorporated.
March 8, 2016 – George Martin (the Fifth Beatle) A trained musician, George Martin worked in the BBC’s classical department before moving to EMI and its subsidiary, Parlophone, producing jazz and classical as well as comedy records for Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Peter Ustinov. He was the genius producer behind a wave of hit British acts in the 1960s, including Gerry and the Pacemakers and Cilla Black, but it was his work with four other Liverpudlians that understandably overshadowed them all.
February 16, 2015 – Lesley Sue Gore was born Lesley Sue Goldstein on May 2, 1946 in Brooklyn, New York City into a middle-class Jewish family, the daughter of Leo and Ronny Gore.
January 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.”
January 25, 2015 – Demis Roussos (Aphrodite’s Child) was born as Artemios Ventouris Roussos in Alexandria, Egypt, on June 15, 1946. His family was greek and his father George was a classical guitarist and engineer, while his mother Olga was a singer. As a child, he studied music and joined the Greek Byzantine Church choir. When his parents lost their possessions during the Suez Crisis, they decided to move to Greece.
November 24, 2013 – Bob Allison was born Bernard Colin Day on February 2nd 1941 in the UK. He became a pop singer and one half of the duo The Allisons, who were marketed as being brothers, using the surname of Allison. Both Bob and John were born in Wiltshire and started harmonizing very early on in life.
July 24, 2012 – Larry Lewis Hoppen (Orleans) was born on January 12, 1951 in Ithaca New York. From a musical family, Larry learned to play keyboards, guitar, bass, melodica and trumpet. His mom took him on her nightclub gigs when he was 10!
February 29, 2012 – David “Davy” Jones (The Monkees) was born on December 30th 1945 in Manchester, England and at age 11 began an acting career, appearing on the soap opera ‘Coronation Street’, produced by Granada Television in Manchester, where in 1961 he played Colin Lomax, the grandson of Ena Sharples.
July 29, 2011 – Eugene Booker “Gene” McDaniels was born on February 12th 1935 in Kansas City, Missouri, but grew up in Omaha, Nebraska.
March, 6, 2009 – David Williams (Session-guitarist) was born November 21st 1950 in Newport News, Virginia. He started his professional career with the Dells at age 18.
March 16, 2008 – Ola Brunkert (Swedish session drummer for Abba) was born in Örebro, Sweden on 15 September 1946. He began his musical career as a jazz drummer. His first professional job was with the Slim’s Blues Gang, before joining the pop group Science Poption in the mid ’60s. He then formed the jazz-rock combo Opus III with the guitarist Janne Schaffer and by 1970 had become one of the most sought after session drummers in Stockholm. His first session with Abba was on their first single, “People Need Love,” in 1972.
December 2, 2006 – Mariska Veres was born on October 1, 1947 in The Hague. Her father was the famous Hungarian 
August 22, 2006 – Bruce Gary was born on April 7, 1951 in Burbank, California. Bruce had a tormented and horrid childhood as he grew up in the early ’60s in the west San Fernando Valley, not far from Malibu. “The popular music of my peers at that time was a wonderful combination of guitar, keyboards, bass and drums called surf music,” he said in a 2002 interview.
March 13, 2003 – Sammy Samwell was born Ian Ralph Sawmill on January 19th 1937.
March 27, 2002 – Dudley Moore was born on April 19th 1935. As an actor, musician, comedian and composer he first came to prominence as one of the four writer-performers in Beyond the Fringe in the early 1960s and became famous as half of the popular television double-act he formed with Peter Cook.
March 26, 2002 – Joe Schermie (Three Dog Night) was born Joseph Edward Schermetzler on February 12th 1946 in Menasha near Madison, Wisconsin.
March 10, 1988 – Andrew Roy Gibb “Andy Gibb” was born on March 5th 1958 in Manchester, England. He was the youngest of five children of Barbara and Hugh Gibb. His mother was of Irish and English descent and his father was of Scottish and Irish descent. He has four siblings: his sister Lesley, and three brothers Barry and fraternal twins Robin and Maurice.
March 22, 1986 – Mark Max Edward Dinning was born on August 17th 1933 in Manchester, Oklahoma, the youngest of nine children, but grew up on a farm outside of Nashville, Tennessee. In 1960, he recorded “Teen Angel” that was written by his sister Jean and her husband Red Surrey.
February 4, 1983 – Karen Carpenter was born in New Haven, Connecticut on March 2nd 1950. When she was young, she enjoyed playing baseball with other children on the street. On the TV program This Is Your Life, she stated that she liked pitching and later, in the early 1970s, she would become the pitcher on the Carpenters’ official softball team. Her brother Richard developed an interest in music at an early age, becoming a piano prodigy. The family moved in June 1963 to the Los Angeles suburb of Downey.
April 24th, 1975 – Pete Ham (Badfinger) was born Peter William Ham in Swansea, Wales on April 27, 1947. He formed a local rock group called The Panthers around 1961. This group would undergo several name and lineup changes before it became The Iveys in 1965. The band was relocated to London by The Mojos manager, Bill Collins, in 1966, and they continued to perform for three years throughout the United Kingdom. As it was, Ham eventually became the prominent songwriter for the band, as a Revox tape recorder was made available by Collins to encourage him. Ray Davies of The Kinks took an initial interest in the group, although tracks produced by Davies did not surface commercially until decades later. In 1968, The Iveys came to the attention of Mal Evans (The Beatles personal assistant) and were eventually signed to the Beatles’ Apple Records label after approval from all four Beatles, who were reportedly impressed by the band’s songwriting abilities.
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