JANUARY 31, 2011

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS!
1892 - Eddie Cantor, Vaudeville, Broadway, motion picture, radio and television actor, singer, songwriter, and Capitol Records artist, is born Edward Israel Iskowitz in the Lower East Side of New York City, New York
1915 - Bobby Hackett, coronet, trumpet and guitar player, member of Benny Goodman and His Orchestra (played at the 1938 Carnegie Hall concert), and Glenn Miller and His Orchestra (initally as a guitarist while his lip was healing, then on short solos such as on "String Of Pearls"), band leader, a Capitol Records solo artist, and on Jackie Gleason's Capitol Records albums, is born Robert Leo Hackett in Providence, Rhode Island

ON THIS DAY IN CAPITOL RECORDS HISTORY
1947 - Dorothy Lamour signs with Capitol Records
1953 - Nat "King" Cole's single "Pretend", with "Don't Let Your Eyes Go Shopping" on the flip side, enters the top 40 of the U.S. Pop singles chart
1963 - The Beach Boys record the tracks "Surfin' U.S.A." and "Shutdown"
1968 - Merle Haggard records the track "The Legend of Bonnie and Clyde" with producer Ken Nelson at Capitol Recording Studios in Hollywood. Merle wrote the song, which will enter the U.S. Country charts in March 1968 and will become Haggard's 4th #1 hit.
1969 - The Beatles record tracks for the songs "The Long And Winding Road", "Let It Be", and "Two Of Us"
1970 - Glen Campbell's 17th Capitol Records single to chart, "Honey Come Back" with "Where Do You Go" on the flip side, peaks at #2 on the U.S. Country singles charts
1990 - Capitol Records releases Buck Owens' last single for the label, "Tijuana Lady", with "Brooklyn Bridge" on the flip side

ON THIS DAY NOT QUITE IN CAPITOL RECORDS HISTORY
1894 - Isham Jones, fiddler, tenor saxophonist, bandleader (whose members would include future Capitol Records artists Benny Goodman and Woody Herman), songwriter ("I'll See You In My Dreams", "The One I Love Belongs To Somebody Else" which was covered by Capitol Records artist Nellie Lutcher and became one of her biggest hits, "It Had To Be You" which was covered by Capitol Records artist Betty Hutton, and others) is born in Coalton, Ohio
55 Years Ago Today In 1956 - Johnny Rotten, lead singer with the EMI and Virgin Records group The Sex Pistols and Virgin Records Group Public Image Ltd. (aka PIL), is born John Lydon in Finsbury Park, London, England
1969 - Billy Preston signs with Apple Records
30 Years Ago Today In 1981 - Blondie's Chrysalis Records single "The Tide Is High" is #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles chart
1982 - The J. Geils Band's EMI America single "Centerfold" is #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 Singles chart

ON THIS DAY NOT IN CAPITOL HISTORY
135 Years Ago Today In 1876 - On a black day in the country's history, the government of the United States of America orders all Native Americans to move into reservations.
75 Years Ago Today In 1936 - "The Green Hornet" radio show debuts on WXYZ radio in Detroit, Michigan and was created by George Trendle and Fran Striker who also created The Lone Ranger which also was broadcast from the same station. A further tie-in is that the Hornet's alter-ego, Britt Reed, is the great nephew of The Lone Ranger's young sidekick Dan Reed.
1945 - On another black day in U.S.A. history, U.S. Army Private Eddie Slovik becomes the first American soldier since the Civil War to be executed for desertion
50 Years Ago Today In 1961 - Ham the Chimp travels into outer space on an early version of NASA's Mercury rocket, performs well on some reponse tests and returns safely to Earth
1990 - The first McDonald's opens in Moscow, Russia
2004 - Mystery Science Theater 3000 ends its run on the Sci-Fi Channel.