SEPTEMBER 11, 2012

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS!
1940 - Bernie Dwyer, drummer with the Tower Records (a subsidiary of Capitol Records) group Freddie And The Dreamers, is born in Manchester, England
1945 - Leo Kottke, guitarist and Capitol Records artist(1971-1975), is born in Athens, Georgia
35 Years Ago Today In 1977 - Jonny Buckland, guitarist with the Capitol Records group Coldplay, is born in London, England

ON THIS DAY IN CAPITOL RECORDS HISTORY
1946 - Cootie Williams and His Orchestra (Cootie Williams on trumpet; Bob Merrill on trumpet and vocals; E. V. Perry, Otis Gamble, Clarence "Gene" Redd, and Billy Ford on trumpet; Ed Burke, Edward Johnson, and Julius "Hawkshaw" Watson on trombone; Rupert Cole and Daniel Williams on alto saxohone; Chuck Clarke and Edwin Johnson on tenor saxophone; Bob Ashton on baritone saxophone; Arnold Jarvis on piano; Norman Keenan on bass; and Butch Ballard on drums) record the tracks "Rhapsody In Bass", "Ain't Got No Blues Today" (with vocals by Merrill), and "Bring 'Em Down Front" (with vocals by Merrill), at WMCA Studios in New York City
1958 - Frank Sinatra, with arranger and conductor Nelson Riddle, records the track "Mr. Success"
1961 - Frank Sinatra, with arranger and conductor Axel Stordahl, records the track "I'll See You Again" on the first day of sessions for his last Capitol Records album "Point Of No Return" in Studio A of The Capitol Tower Studios
1961 - Capitol Records releases The Kingston Trio's album "Close Up" which is their first album with John Stewart as a member
50 Years Ago Today In 1962 - The Beatles re-record "Love Me Do" with Andy White on drums instead of Ringo Starr. This version will be used on all album releases and in all other territories except England on the single releases.
1963 - The Beatles record the track "All I've Got To Do"
1965 - The Beatles' Capitol Records album "HELP!" is #1 on Billboard's Top 200 albums chart and will stay on top for nine weeks and their Capitol Records single "HELP!", with "I'm Down" on the flip side, is #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart
45 Years Ago Today In 1967 - Capitol Records releases Tennessee Ernie Ford's single "Hand-Me-Down Things" with "The Road" on the flip side
1969 - Leon Payne, guitarist, songwriter (best known for "Lost Highway" and "I Love You Because"), member of the group Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys, and a Capitol Records solo artist, dies in San Antonio, Texas at age 52
25 Years Ago Today In 1987 - Peter Tosh (born Winston Hubert McIntosh), singer, songwriter, member of the band The Wailers, and Capitol Records solo recording artist, along with musician and herbalist Wilton "Doc" Brown and popular Jamaican Broadcasting Corporation DJ Jeff "Free-I" Dixon, are shot in Tosh's home in Kingston, Jamaica by three men demanding money. Brown is killed instantly and Tosh and Dixon will later be pronounced dead at University Hospital in Kingston. Tosh was 43 years old.
5 Years Ago Today In 2007 - Former Capitol Records artist Brian Wilson is announced to be one of the five honorees of the Kennedy Center Honors to be held December 2, 2007 in Washington, D.C. The ceremony will be broadcast by CBS-TV on December 26, 2006. The other honorees are comedian Steve Martin, motion picture director and film preservationist Martin Scorsese, singer Diana Ross and pianist Leon Fleisher.

ON THIS DAY NOT QUITE IN CAPITOL RECORDS HISTORY
55 Years Ago Today In 1957 - John Moss, with the Virgin Records group Culture Club, is born
1966 - Gregory Kane, keyboardist with the Circa Records (a division of Virgin Records) band Hue And Cry (and, with his brother and bandmate Pat Kane has also performed or recorded with Madonna, U2, Simply Red, James Brown, The Brecker Brothers, The Average White Band, Ray Charles, and Tito Puente), is born in Coatbridge, Scotland
45 Years Ago Today In 1967 - The Beatles begin filming their BBC Television musical "Magical Mystery Tour" as the cast and crew board the coach and begin travelling around the UK. Capitol Records will release the soundtrack album in the United States.
1998 - Stella Ritter, granddaughter of Capitol Records artist Tex Ritter and daughter of actors John Ritter and Amy Yasbeck, is born
2003 - John Ritter, television and motion picture actor, and son of Capitol Records artist Tex Ritter, dies at age 54 (exactly one week before his 55th birthday) from an aortic dissection caused by a previously undiagnosed congenital heart defect, after being rushed to Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center (the same hospital where he was born) in Burbank, California when he became seriously ill during rehearsals on the set of his television series "8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter". Ritter is latter interred at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

ON THIS DAY NOT IN CAPITOL RECORDS HISTORY
1950 - The first photo-typesetting machine is put on public display at the Sixth Educational Graphic Arts Exposition, in Chicao, Illinois. It is the Intertype Fotosetter Photogtaphic Line Composing Machine which is manufactured by the Intertype Corporation of Brooklyn, New York
40 Years Ago Today In 1972 - Max Fleischer, animator, animation developer, director and producer, and studio founder with brothers Dave and Richard (Fleisher Studios which innovated using the rotoscope process for animation, created the first sound cartoon in 1924 using the Lee DeForest sound-on-film synchronization process, created the characters Betty Boop and Koko the Clown, created the "follow the bouncing ball" sing along cartoons series, and set the standard for animation with shorts based on the Popeye and Superman characters before selling the studios to Paramount Pictures in 1942), dies at age 89 in Woodland Hills, California
1981 - The HBO special "The Pee-wee Herman Show" airs for the first time
2001 - 9/11
Calls went out early in the morning to Capitol's employees not to come into the office that day. I was woken up by a call from Wendy Dougan and couldn't believe what I had heard. The rest of the day was spent just watching the news unfold. The Tower did re-open the next day but soon there was a bomb scare at around noon that sent all the employees out of the building and in to the newly re-developed far rear parking lot. If anything had happened to the building it would have been a great view but we probably would all have been killed flying pieces of The Tower. After a few hours we were let back into the building. After that day, security was tightened to the point where tourists could no longer enter The Tower to look at the gold records lining the walls of the lobby. This policy is still in effect to this today.