- Jimi Hendrix’ debut album, Are You Experienced, enters the Billboard charts and remains for 106 weeks. The album featured ‘Purple Haze, ‘Hey Joe’, ‘The Wind Cries Mary’, ‘Fire’, and ‘Foxy Lady’…most of his hits, basically. Certainly one of the best rock debut albums ever.
- Blues legend Riley ‘B.B. King was born in 1925 on Berclair plantation, near Itta Bena, Mississippi. ‘The King of the Blues’ is one of the most influential bluesmen of all time and was a relentless performer, both on stage and off. He is rumored to have appeared at 342 shows in 1956 alone and put on more than 200 concerts a year well into his ‘70s. He is also alleged to have fathered 15 children by 15 different women, all out of wed lock. Shawn Kemp’s got nuthin’ on B.B.
- ‘Rappers Delight’ was released in 1979. Not the first song with “rapping” but the one that likely first brought the medium to the masses. The song, recorded in one take, was performed and written by the Sugarhill Gang (Wonder Mike, Big Bank Hank and Master Gee), along with Chic’s Nile Rodgers, and Sylvia Robinson and Bernard Edwards (no, not that one). I’m sure this was the first rap song I ever heard. I said a hip hop the hippie to the hippie the hip hip hop, a you don't stop…..
- Former Small Faces, The Faces, and Who drummer Kenney Jones is 67 today. He played with Steve Marriott in the Small Faces, Rod Stewart and Ron Wood in The Faces, before replacing Keith Moon in the Who in 1978, and was a member for a decade. He’s also guested on dozens of recordings.
- The Talking Heads released their debut album, Talking heads 77, surprisingly in 1977. The record features ‘Psycho Killer’, which I’ve always really liked.
- Also born today were Richard Marx, Flo Rida and Nick Jonas. I don’t really know anything about them but they did stuff and it’s a big day for those folks too.
