OCTOBER 17

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
1923 - Barney Kessel, guitarist, band leader and Capitol Records session musician for session lead by Billy May, Mel Torme and others, arranger and guitarist for Julie London on her "Julie Is Her Name" Liberty Records album, member of the Jazz Hall of Fame, owner of Kessel's Music World in Hollywood, California, columnist and writer of guitar instruction manuals, is born in Muskogee, Oklahoma. Swingmusic.net has a great biography of Kessel.
1942 - Lee Greenwood, singer, songwriter and Capitol Records (1990) and Liberty Records artist (1992-1993), is born in South Gate, California. Liberty Records would later become Capitol Records Nashville.

ON THIS DAY IN CAPITOL RECORDS HISTORY
1946 - Guitarist Carl Kress (with Chris Griffin on trumpet, Hank D'Amico on clarinet, Artie Drelinger on tenor saxophone, Stan Freeman on piano, Bob Haggart on bass and Dave Tough drums) records the tracks "There's A Small Hotel", "Just You, Just Me", "Coquette", and "I May Be Wrong" at WMCA's studios in New York City. "Just You, Just Me" and "Coquette" will be released as a single by Capitol Records. "There's A Small Hotel", and "I May Be Wrong" will remain unreleased until they are included in Mosaic Records' box set "Classic Capitol Jazz Sessions" in 1997.
1955 - Capitol Records releases Tennessee Ernie Ford's single "You Don't Have To Be A Baby To Cry", with a cover version of Merle Travis' "Sixteen Tons" on the flip side, both produced by Lee Gillette. D.J.s turn the flip side into Ford's biggest hit and Capitol's fastest million selling single (twenty four days) to that date. The story of "Sixteen Tons" is wonderfully written at ErnieFord.com.
1955 - Frank Sinatra records the tracks "You Forgot All The Words (While I Still Remember The Tune)" (released by Capitol as a the flip side of the single "Hey, Jealous Lover", and will be included as a bonus track on the CD reissue of Sinatra's album "No One Cares"), "Love Is Here To Stay" (included on Sinatra's Capitol Records album "Songs For Swingin' Lovers"), and "Weep They Will" (released as the flip side of the Capitol Records single "The Tender Trap") at Capitol Records Studios on Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, California with arranger Nelson Riddle conducting the orchestra (Mahlon Clark and Wilbur Schwartz on alto saxophone; Justin Gordon and Warren Webb on tenor saxophone; Robert Lawson on baritone saxophone, John Best, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Clarence "Shorty" Sherock, and Rubin "Zeke" Zarchy on trumpet; Dick Noel, Jim Priddy, and Paul Tanner on trombone; George Roberts on bass trombone; George Van Eps on guitar; Joe Comfort on bass; Bill Miller on piano; Frank Flynn on vibraphone; Kathryn Julye on harp; Irv Cottler on drums; Victor Bay, Alex Beller, Sam Cytron, Robert Gross, Henry Hill, Dan Lube, Alex Murray, Paul Nero, Erno Neufeld, and Mischa Russell on violin; Maxine Johnson, Paul Robyn, and Dave Sterkin on viola; Ennio Bologinni, Ray Kramer, and Eleanor Slatkin on cello)
1955 - Eighteen year old singer and guitarist Jerry Reed has his first Capitol Records recording session at Castle Studios in Nashville, Tennessee where, with producer Ken Nelson and Nelson's front-line Nashville session musicians to back him, he'll record "If The Good Lord's Willing And The Creeks Don't Rise" and "Here I Am" (which will be Reed's first Capitol single), as well as "Just A Romeo" (which ends up as the flip side to Reed's fourth single) and "I'm Tired Of Playing Cupid" (which went unreleased until Bear Family Records released it on Reed's box set "Here I Am" in 1999).
1958 - Peggy Lee records the tracks "Charley, My Boy", "Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny Oh!", "My Man", "I'm Just Wild About Harry" with arranger Jack Marshall conducting his Orchestra (no confirmed list of players), and Dave Cavanaugh producing. The tracks will appear on Lee's 1959 Capitol Records album "I Like Men" at The Capitol Tower Studios in Hollywood, California
1960 - Nat "King" Cole has the first try out of his musical revue "I'm With You", which uses songs from his Capitol Records album "Wild Is Love", at the beginning of his fall tour in Denver, Colorado. The tour would end November 26 in Detroit, Michigan and would evolve into his 1961-1964 stage show "Sights And Sounds: The Merry World Of Nat 'King' Cole".
1963 - The Beatles record the track "I Want To Hold Your Hand" at EMI Studios on Abbey Road in London, England
1991 - Exactly thirty-six years after "Sixteen Tons" was released, Tennessee Ernie Ford (born Ernest Jennings Ford), singer, actor, and Capitol Records artist, dies in a hospital in Reston, Virginia of advanced liver disease at age 72. Ford will later be buried at Alta Mesa Memorial Park, Palo Alto, Santa Clara County, California.
1994 - Foo Fighters begin to record tracks for their self-titled Capitol Records debut album at Robert Lang Studio in Seattle, Washington which they will co-produce with Barrett Jones, with recording engineer Steve Culp and mixers Tom Rothrock and Rob Schnapf
2006 - Capitol Records Nashville releases Dierks Bentley's third album "“Long Trip Alone”

ON THIS DAY NOT QUITE IN CAPITOL RECORDS HISTORY
1960 - The musical "Tenderloin" opens at 46th Street Theatre in New York City. Capitol Records will later release the original cast album which will later be re-released by Broadway Angel Records. The show features the song "Artificial Flowers" which would later become a hit Capitol Records single for Bobby Darin.
1962 - The Beatles make their television debut with a live appearance on an episode of "People and Places" on Granada TV where they sing "Some Other Guy" and "Love Me Do"
1967 - All four of The Beatles attend the Memorial Service for Brian Epstein held at the New London Synagogue
2001 - Jay Livingston, three-time Oscar-winning songwriter with partner Ray Evans, actor, and brother of former Capitol Records, VP, President and Chairman Alan Livingston, dies of pneumonia in Los Angeles, CA at age 86. There's a great biography at Lucyfan.com.

ON THIS DAY NOT IN CAPITOL RECORDS HISTORY
1951 - An article with today's date in Variety is the first found mention of a pirate version of a studio outtake being released, when it states that a Fats Waller pirate included one unreleased track taken from studio vaults