SEPTEMBER 6, 2008

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
1944 - Roger Waters, singer, songwriter, and bass player with the Capitol Records group Pink Floyd, is born George Roger Waters in Great Bookham, Surrey near Dorking, England

ON THIS DAY IN CAPITOL RECORDS HISTORY
45 Years Ago Today In 1963 - Brian Epstein signs a management contract with Priscilla White, Ringo Starr's mother's hairdresser and cloakroom girl at The Cavern. She changes her name to Cilla Black. Her recordings with producer George Martin on the Parlophone label in the U.K. will later be released by Capitol Records in the United States.
1975 - Glen Campbell's Capitol Records single "Rhinestone Cowboy", with "Lovelight" on the flip side, hits #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles chart
1986 - Capitol Records group April Wine records their album "Walking Through Fire"
2005 - Capitol Records Nashville releases Ryan Shupe & The Rubber Band's debut album “Dream Big”

ON THIS DAY NOT QUITE IN CAPITOL RECORDS HISTORY
1899 - Billy Rose, lyricist (best-known for "Me And My Shadow" as well as "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor On The Bedpost Overnight" [with Marty Bloom], "I Found a Million Dollar Baby" [with Mort Dixon], and "It's Only a Paper Moon" [with E. Y. Harburg]), Broadway and Aquacade producer, theatre and nightclub owner, and one-time husband of Capitol Records artist Fanny Brice, is born William Samuel Rosenberg in New York City, New York
40 Years Ago Today In 1968 - Drummer Elvin Jones, with Joe Farrell on tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone and flute and Jimmy Garrison on bass, records the tracks "What Is This?", "In The Truth", "Ascendant", "Sometimes Joie", "Yesterdays", and "We'll Be Together Again", that will appear on his Blue Note Records album "The Ultimate Elvin Jones", with producer Duke Pearson and recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder at the Van Gelder Studio in Englewood, New Jersey. EMI Music Group, Capitol Music Group's parent company, currently owns the Blue Note catalog.
1969 - Sid & Marty Krofft's "H.R. Pufnstuf" premieres on NBC-TV with the first of only 17 episodes, although a feature length movie will be released later by Universal. Capitol Records will release a soundtrack album for the show as well as a solo album in 1969 for it's only non-masked actor Jack Wild.
1974 - Virgin Records releases Robert Wyatt's single "I'm A Believer", with "Memories" on the flip side, both of which which were produced by Pink Floyd's Nick Mason. Capitol Records currently owns Virgin Records' catalog.
1985 - The sale of Northern Songs (the holder of almost all of the Lennon/McCartney copyrights) to Michael Jackson is finalized
2005 - Virgin Records, a subsidiary of Capitol Records, releases The Rolling Stones album "A Bigger Bang"

ON THIS DAY NOT IN CAPITOL RECORDS HISTORY
1904 - "Slapsie" Maxie Rosenbloom, boxer (Light Heavyweight Championship of the World in 1932), motion picture actor, and night club owner (Slapsie Maxie's, with locations in San Francisco and at what is now The New Beverly Cinema on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles, California which is within 2 blocks of The Institute Of The American Musical on Detroit Street) is born in Harlem, New York City, New York
1976 - Frank Sinatra, performing on The Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, surprises everyone when he brings out Dean Martin. It is the first public re-uniting of former Capitol Records duo Martin and Lewis since their breakup in 1956. I remember watching this happen in the wee hours of the morning as I was up all night working on a art project. Fortunately, they re-ran the event many times during the rest of the Telethon so my parents, who were asleep (as was most of the country) when it happened, got to see the reunion. Sinatra was beaming and Dean and Jerry played it hilariously low key like it had been only a few days since they last talked versus 20 years.
1984 - Ginger Rogers is in Buffalo, New York (close to my childhood home town of Eggertsville) for a homecoming at Shea’s Theatre where she had played 55 years earlier. Shea's has recently been refurbished with better seating, more back stage working space, loading docks and and state-of-the-art dressing rooms. This former part of the Paramount Theatres chain gives very knowledgeable tours of the theatre and the backstage area (although the backstage tour is limited if a show is currently engaged in the theatre).

BTW - This is my 900th post to this blog.