Joseph Haydn was a baroque era composer. He was born on March 31, 1732 and died May 31, 1809. Called “Father of the String Quartet” and was instrumental to the piano trio, considered the genesis of the sonata form. Of his 3 brothers, Michael Haydn, was also an accomplished composer & Johann Evangelist Haydn, a virtuoso tenor. Besides his own compositions, he taught both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven.
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A folk legend Trini Lopez, died of the Wuhan (Covid 19) virus in Rancho Mirage, Calif in August 16, 2020. He was 83 and working at the time for benefit on a music festival to raised food for those afflicted. Born to Mexican parents in Dallas, Texas on May 13, 1937. Trinidad Lopez III was born on May 13, 1937, in Dallas. His father, Trinidad II, was a singer, dancer and musician in the ranchera style but made his living as a manual laborer. As a teenager, the elder Mr. Lopez had married Petra Gonzales in their hometown, Moroleón, in…
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Mac Davis was a pop-country crossover musical artist in the 1970s-1980s. He died on Tuesday in Nashville at 78 years old. He wrote two big hits for Elvis Presley, most notably “In the Ghetto”, and “A little less conversation” both which gave him a big boost in his fledging career. After that he penned for Kenny Rogers before finally getting a number 1 hit of his own with “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me.” His long time manager and good friend, Jim Morey, released the information saying Mac death was a result of the complications of Mr. Davis’s recent heart…
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Maybelline wasn’t true for Chuck Berry, but then again neither was Chuck. He died on March 18, 2017. His obit on Billboard gives a fair account of his life, read it here. While the New York Post fills in the details. We are highlighting Chuck’s 1958 publicity shot taken from Rolling Stone’s 500 Best RnR songs of all time — Johnny B. Goode rated number seven. Themetta and Chuck Barry, 2011. When he died they had been married an incredible 69 years. Chuck Berry the Chart There is a great joke in Back to the Future where Michael J. Fox…
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Maybelline wasn’t true for Chuck Berry, but then again neither was Chuck. He died on March 18, 2017. His obit on Billboard gives a fair account of his life, read it here. While the New York Post fills in the details. We are highlighting Chuck’s 1958 publicity shot taken from Rolling Stone’s 500 Best RnR songs of all time — Johnny B. Goode rated number seven. Themetta and Chuck Barry, 2011. When he died they had been married an incredible 69 years. Chuck Berry the Chart There is a great joke in Back to the Future where Michael J. Fox…
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Dolly Parton has a new series on Netflix called Heartstrings. This is just another notch in her very successful acting-music career. The starter for the series is her number #1 hit, Jolene, a country ballad of a “hussy” trying to steal Dolly’s husband. It debuted in 1973 and was a surprise hit as heavy metal (Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath) & country rock and roll (Poco, the Eagles. Rolling Stones (who played both sides of that bill) ) were battling for the top of the chart. Jolene’s success showed the American appetite for heartfelt ballads had yet to abate,…
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Louis Alter was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts on June 18, 1902 at 7 o’clock in the morning. He played vaudeville as the accompanist for headliners Irène Bordoni and Nora Bayes, the latter which he worked with continuously until her death in 1928. As he had previously written some songs for Broadway shows, after Ms Bayes demise, he concentrated on that solely.
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It all began in Rio On the night of June 30, 1886, Arturo Toscanini — recently turned 19 — arrived, barely on time, at the imperial opera house in Rio de Janeiro, was to perform “Aida.” Pandemonium. The unpopular lead conductor had resigned in a huff; the audience shouted his unpopular replacement off the podium. Toscanini, the principal cellist & assistant choral master, was thrust forward by his colleagues. “Everyone knew about my memory,” he would recall, “because the singers had all had lessons with me, and I had played the piano without ever looking at the music.” For the remaining…
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When we started this project, three years ago on August 29th, we began with mundane charts and the Invasion of Poland, September 1st, 1939. No one remembers when we changed over to mainly nativities, but by February 2017 we were back to the natals I had started as a solo project several years previous. It must have been around March when Hoagy Carmichael, not part of the Jones 1000 surprisingly, was suggested but I no longer remember why. He was tough, so tough, that we finally gave up and shelved him. We decided that this musical genius could just about…
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Bobby Guy was born in Lambertville, Hunterdon County, New Jersey on March 28, 1916 as William Robert Guy. There is not much known about him before he started playing trumpet with the the legendary Kay Kyser band in 1936 just as the metal horn shook off its military heritage and became a “modern” musical instrument (see Uranus in the 2nd house opposite Mars in the 8th) thanks to him and fellow impresario Louis Armstrong. Bobby joined the Kyser band on trumpet in the Spring of ’36. “A slightly imposing appearance betrayed a friendly personality. You could hear Bobby Guy’s laugh…
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Marc Jones wrote very little on the nodes, so last month we took a turn with several other authors and highlighted their work on the nodes. Naturally, we found some better than others like Martin Schulman, Georges Muchery and Bernice Grebner, but in all honesty we did not survey Dr. Mohan Koparkar, Haydn Paul and the Hubers, so this month, June, we are going to continue our with the nodes, highlighting them. Each month, we will discuss another popular asteroid or trans-Neptunian planet. This month we start the parade with Asteroid Lilith which discovered on February 11, 1927 at 11 pm…
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The diva Celestina Boninsegna was a born on 26 February 1877 in Reggio Emilia, Italy. She studied with composer Guglielmo Mattioli (1857-1924) for the opera and made her professional debut at 15 years of age. She is best known for her soulful interpretations of Verdi’s heroines, but she did have a wide repertoire including singing Rosaura in the world premiere of Pietro Mascagni’s Le Maschere (The Masks) — the librettist was Luigi Illica — on 17 January 1901 at La Scala opera house in Milan, Italy. This was a rather circular homage for the diva — Mascagni’s Le Maschere was…
