OCTOBER 21

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
1931 - Roy Nichols, guitarist, songwriter, Capitol Records session guitarist, 1988 inductee in the Western Swing Society Hall of Fame, and first member hired by Capitol Records artist Merle Haggard for his backing band The Strangers (and a member for 22 years from 1967-1987), is born in Chandler, Arizona. If anyone knows his middle name, please leave a comment.

ON THIS DAY IN CAPITOL RECORDS HISTORY
1944 - The King Cole Trio's Capitol Records single "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You", with "I Realize Now" on the flip side, tops the "Race Music" charts in the United States. The single will also cross over to the Pop charts where it will peak at #20.
1949 - Gordon MacRae records the track "Dear Hearts and Gentle People" for Capitol Records which will be released as a single (Capitol 777) with "Mule Train" (which MacRae recorded on October 1, 1949) on the flip side
1957 - Capitol Records released Buck Owens' single "Come Back" with "I know What It Means" on the flip side
1963 - Bing Crosby records the track "Do You Hear What I Hear" and one other track for Capitol Records. If anyone knows the name of the other track and where it was recorded, please leave a comment.
1965 - The Beatles record the track "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" (with George Harrison playing the sitar for the first time on one of the band's songs) and started recording the track "Nowhere Man" (which they would finish the next day, October 22, 1965) in Studio Two at EMI's Abbey Road Studios, London, England
1974 - John Lennon enters the Record Plant studios in New York City for 5 straight days of sessions to re-record tracks for his Capitol Records "Rock 'N' Roll" album which he will produce himself
1977 - Capitol Records releases The Beatles' compilation album "Love Songs"
1991 - Poison's Capitol Records album "Open Up And Say Ahh!" is certified as 5 times Multi-Platinum by the R.I.A.A.
1995 - Shannon Hoon (born Richard Shannon Hoon), songwriter and lead singer of Capitol Records group Blind Melon, is found dead at age 28 of an intense cocaine overdose in the band's tour bus before a sound check for a show at Tipitina's in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is later buried in Dayton, Indiana.
1994 - Ginger Mercer (born Elizabeth Meltzer), Broadway dancer and actress, wife of Capitol Records co-founder Johnny Mercer, and founder of the Johnny Mercer Foundation, dies at age 85. If any one knows the cause and location of her death, please leave a comment.
1995 - Maxene Andrews, singer, actress, and member of the Capitol Records trio The Andrew Sisters, dies of a heart attack at age 79 in Hyannis, Massachusettes while on vacation from her role in the off-Broadway musical "Swingtime Canteen". She is later interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

ON THIS DAY NOT QUITE IN CAPITOL RECORDS HISTORY
1915 - Owen Bradley, record producer, studio owner, and Country Music Hall of Fame inductee in 1974, is born in Westmoreland, Tennessee. Capitol Record producer Ken Nelson would use Bradley's Nashville studio to record many Capitol artists including the single version of Gene Vincent's "Be Bop A Lula"
1999 - Former Capitol Records artist Marilyn King (The King Sisters) and Herb Jefferies, with the Paul Smith Trio, perform "Salute to Duke Ellington" at The Ruth B. Shannon Center for the Performing Arts at Whittier College, Whittier, California at 8 p.m.

ON THIS DAY NOT IN CAPITOL RECORDS HISTORY
1958 - Buddy Holly's last recording session is held at Pythian Temple in New York City
1970 - John Thomas Scopes, the high school teacher who was convicted of teaching evolution in a Tennessee school after the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial, dies at age 70. He is later buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Paducah, Kentucky