1 May
1930-68: ‘Little Walter’ Jacobs (Marion Walter Jacobs) (blues harmonica)
1939: Judy Collins (singer-songwriter)
1944: Rita Coolidge (singer, ex-wife of Kris Kristofferson)
1945: Mimi Farina (folk singer and Joan Baez’s sister)
2 May
1929: Link Wray
1964: The Beatles’ second US album reaches No 1 in a record two weeks.
1967: Capitol officially announces the abandonment of The Beach Boys’ Smile LP.
1988: Miles Davis at the Melbourne Concert Hall.
3 May
1919: Pete Seeger
1928: James Brown
1968: Jimi Hendrix Experience records ‘Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)’ at The Record Plant, NYC.
4 May
1928: Maynard Ferguson (jazz trumpeter, orchestra leader)
1930: Ed Cassidy (drums, Spirit)
1970: Four students at Kent State University are shot and killed by National Guard troops after an anti-Vietnam war protest. Neil Young writes ‘Ohio’.
1987d: Paul Butterfield found dead in his North Hollywood flat at 44 years of age.
5 May
1901: Blind Willie Samuel McTell (blues singer/guitarist)
1937: Johnnie Taylor (soul singer, Who’s Making Love)
1942: Tammy Wynette (d. 1998)
1968: Buffalo Springfield plays its final concert in Long Beach, California.
1972d: Ragtime blues and gospel performer the Reverend Gary Davis dies, aged 76.
6 May
1945: Bob Seger (Nightmoves)
7 May
1970: Howlin’ Wolf records ‘The Red Rooster’ for the London Howlin’ Wolf sessions.
8 May
1911-1938: Robert Johnson
1940-85: Rick Nelson.
1945: Keith Jarrett (jazz piano, composer)
1951: Janis Ian (singer/songwriter ‘At 17’)
1970: Release of The Beatles’ Let It Be LP.
1974: Graham Bond is found dead under a train in London’s Finsbury Park tube station, aged 36.
9 May
1944: Richie Furay (Buffalo Springfield, Poco)
1947: Dave Prater (Sam and Dave)
10 May
1929: Fats Domino
1940-93: Arthur Alexander (soul singer, songwriter, ‘You Better Move On’)
1944: Jackie Lomax
1946: Donovan (Leitch)
1952: Noel Charles ‘Sly’ Dunbar (session drummer)
11 May
1885-1938: Joseph ‘King’ Oliver (pioneering jazz cornet player)
1941: Eric Victor Burdon
1947: Claude Hudson ‘Butch’ Trucks (drums, Allman Bros)
1970: The triple album Woodstock-Vol 1 soundtrack is released on Cotillion Records
1979d: Lester Flatt (country performer, Flatt & Scruggs), at 64 years old.
1981d: Bob Marley dies at age 36, succumbing to a
1968: Cream earns its first gold record with its second album, Disraeli Gears.
12 May
1929: Burt Bacharach (songwriter in partnership with Hal David)
1942: Ian Dury
1946: Ian McLagan (keyboard, Faces now with Billy Bragg in The Blokes)
1948: Steve Winwood
13 May
1941-59: Ritchie Valens (‘La Bamba’)
1950: (Little) Stevie Wonder (Steveland Morris Hardaway Judkins)
1950: Danny Kirwan (guitar, singer, songwriter, Fleetwood Mac 1968-72).
1975d: Bob Wills, the king of western swing, dies in Fort Worth, Texas, aged 70.
1981: Release of The Sports’ Sondra LP.
1988d: Chet Baker (jazz trumpeter, vocalist, after a fall from the window of his Amsterdam hotel room, at 55 years of age.
14 May
1943: Jack Bruce (Cream, solo)
1949: Richard Clapton (singer/songwriter)
1952: David Byrne
1969: Release of Easy Rider.
1976d: Former Yardbirds lead singer and co-founder of Renaissance, Keith Relf, is fatally electrocuted in his West London home, aged only 33.
15 May
1953: Mike Oldfield (Mr Tubular Bells)
1965: The Byrds enter the Top 100 for the first time, with an electric version of Bob Dylan’s ‘Mr Tambourine Man,’ which goes No 1 after 13 weeks.
1978: Release of The Sports’ Reckless LP.
16 May
1944: Billy Cobham (jazz/rock drummer)
1951: Jonathan Richman
1953d: Django Reinhardt, brain haemorrhage, aged 43.
1966: Release of The Beach Boys’ legendary LP Pet Sounds.
17 May
1940: Henry Saint Clair Fredericks (Taj Mahal)
1944: Jesse Winchester (singer/songwriter and drummer)
1967: Don’t Look Back, DA Pennebaker’s doco on Bob Dylan’s tour of Britain in 1965, premieres in San Francisco.
18 May
1911-85: ‘Big’ Joe Turner (jazz/blues singer)
1942: Albert Hammond (‘It Never Rains in Southern California’)
1952: Grace Jones
1952: Joey Ramone
1954: ‘Wreckless’ Eric (Goulden) [singer/songwriter]
1979: Mondo Rock recorded at Bombay Rock. (See Primal Park LP).
1980d: Ian Curtis (Joy Division).
19 May
1940: Mickey Newbury (country singer, songwriter)
1945: Pete Townsend
1949: Dusty Hill (bass, ZZ Top)
20 May
1944: Joe Cocker
1988: John Hiatt begins recording the Slow Turning LP at Ronnie Milsap’s Brownstar Labs, Nashville.
21 May
1904: Thomas ‘Fats’ Waller
1955: Chuck Berry records ‘Maybelline’ at Chess Studios in Chicago.
22 May
1950: Bernie Taupin
1968: Cream earns its first gold record with its second album, Disraeli Gears.
23 May
1918-85: Robert ‘Bumps’ Blackwell (songwriter, producer, Long Tall Sally etc)
1934b-2005d: Robert Moog (inventor)
24 May
1941: Bob Dylan (Robert Allen Zimmerman)
1944: Patti La Belle (Patricia Holt), soul singer
1955: Rosanne Cash
1963: Elmore James dies, aged 45, following a heart attack.
1974d: ‘The Duke’ – Duke Ellington – dies from lung cancer, aged 75.
1991d: Gene Clark (singer, songwriter, Byrds, solo) aged 49.
25 May
1929-91: Miles Davis
1937: Tom T. Hall (country singer, songwriter)
1954: Howlin’ Wolf records Willie Dixon’s ‘Evil’.
1958: Paul Weller
1965: Sonny Boy Williamson (Aleck Miller)
1970: Peter Green leaves Fleetwood Mac.
1981d: Roy Brown (‘Good Rockin’ Tonight’)
26 May
1933d: Jimmy Rodgers (country singer/songwriter) of TB, aged 35
1942: Levon Helm (The Band)
1948: Stevie Nicks
1949: Mick Ronson (guitar, Mott The Hoople, The Spiders from Mars, etc)
1966: Bob Dylan and The Hawks play the Royal Albert Hall, London.
1969: John and Yoko begin the second ‘Bed-in for Peace’
1975: Release (as a single) of Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’.
27 May
1935: Ramsey Lewis (jazz piano)
1945: Bruck Cockburn (singer, songwriter)
1958: Neil Finn (Split Enz, Crowded House)
1962: Columbia Records releases Bob Dylan’s second album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.
28 May
1910-75: Aaron Thibeaux ‘T-Bone’ Walker (blues guitarist, singer)
1944: Gladys Knight (soul singer)
1945: John Fogerty (Credence Clearwater Revival)
1966: John Coltrane records Live at the Village Vanguard.
1969: Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull arrested in London on charges of possession of marijuana.
1973: Ronnie Lane, a founder member of The Faces (nee Small Faces) quits the band to form his own Slim Chance.
29 May
1945: Gary Brooker (Procol Harum)
1964: The Daily Mail classifies the Rolling Stones as ‘the ugliest group in Britain.’
1989d: John Cipollina (guitar, Quicksilver Messenger Service) at 45.
30 May
1957: Nicky ‘Topper’ Headon (drums, Clash)
1980: Carl Radle, bassist for Derek and the Dominos,
Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett and Leon Russell, dies of a chronic kidney complaint at age 37.
31 May
1938: Peter Yarrow (Peter, Paul and Mary)
1940: Augie Meyers (keyboards, Sir Douglas Quintet)
1948-80: John ‘Bonzo’ Bonham
1967d: Billy Strayhorn (jazz composer, arranger) from cancer, aged 51.
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