1969 - Walter Carlos's album Switched-On Bach, notable for being the first successful album to remix classical music compositions on the newly-invented Moog synthesizer, reaches #10 on the chart. The popularity of the album is the commercial breakthrough for Moog synthesizers, which go on to be part of the soundtrack in the films Tron, The Shining, and A Clockwork Orange. This in part brings synthesized music to mainstream popularity, paving the way for disco (especially the 'hi-NRG' style) in the '70s.
1977 - New York's legendary disco and party central, Studio 54, opened up for business. Studio 54 was the epicenter of 70s hedonism--a place that not only redefined the nightclub, but also came to symbolize an entire era.
1977 - Jim Steinman's play Neverland opens at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Five months later, three of the songs he wrote for the production appear on Meat Loaf's seminal album Bat Out Of Hell, which would become one of the 10 best-selling albums of all time. Steinman passed away last week.
1978 - The Last Waltz, director Martin Scorsese's acclaimed documentary of The Band's star-studded last concert, opened in theaters. The film featured performances by Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, The Staple Singers and Dr. John.
The film receives lavish critical praise, instantly touted as one of the great concert films ever made, with only a couple prominent detractors issuing negative reviews. One of those detractors, however, is the Band's Levon Helm, who feels the movie is made to look as if Robbie Robertson was the only member who really mattered. He calls it "The biggest f--kin' rip off that ever happened to The Band." (Photo by Paul Hawthorne/Getty Images)
2013 - Country singer George Jones who had a string of number one songs between the 1950s and 1990s, died at age 81. Nicknamed "Possum", his signature song was "He Stopped Loving Her Today", a track about love and death. He was married to Tammy Wynette between 1969 and 1975 and the pair recorded several songs together in the 1970s. A legendary George Jones story was when his second wife tried to physically stop him from going to the liquor store by hiding the keys to the car. Undaunted, George hopped on his riding lawn mower and made the trip on it.
Birthdays:
Duane Eddy is 83.
Gary Wright, best known for his hits "Dream Weaver" and "My Love Is Alive," is 78.
Roger Taylor, drummer with Duran Duran, is 61.
Chris Marrs, former Replacements drummer, is 60.
On this Day In Music History sourced from This Day in Music, Song Facts, IMDb and Wikipedia.