Today in 1962, the recording of the landmark James Brown album “Live at the Apollo,” one that came together after the recording team dealt with one pretty big obstacle.
Today in 1978, Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand released their enormous hit duet "You Don't Bring Me Flowers." a duet that pretty much happened by accident.
Today in 1936, the premiere of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 1. That was 71 years after the symphony was written, which is what happens when a symphony is thought to be lost.
Today was the birthday in 1890 of Groucho Marx, perhaps the best known of the comic geniuses known as the Marx Brothers. And yet, if it hadn’t been for a runaway mule, they might never have ended up doing comedy.
Today in 1945, the birthday of singer/songwriter Van Morrison. His biggest fans and his loudest critics can agree that the guy does not like being told what to do, and he proved it by recording one of the strangest albums in the history of music.
Today is, thanks to a long-ago calendar change, one of two birthdays in 1896 of Leon Theremin. He invented a very unusual musical instrument that you play without touching it.
This month in 1973, a newspaper in California known as The Recycler started publishing. It was mostly a list of classified ads, but those ads have had a pretty big impact on music.
It took me way too long to put this list together, but at last here’s some of the music I enjoyed the most this year!
Today in 1944, the greatest concert in Carnegie Hall history, featuring a truly incomparable singer: the one and only Florence Foster Jenkins. Here's how the woman sometimes called the worst opera singer of all time ended up on one of the most famous stages of all time.
It’s Portugal Day, and no doubt there will be celebrations across the country, including the capital city, Lisbon. Though there was a time in the 19th century when the capital of Portugal was not only outside Lisbon, it was outside Portugal.
