In 1981, British musician and songwriter Phil Collins released his first solo album - Face Value, featuring his blockbuster downtempo hit In The Air Tonight, the first single released off the album. The vocoded vocal and drum machine driven song was about the pain, anger and despair Collins felt after divorcing his first wife - this song and the songs follow-up hit I Missed Again were written in hope of luring his ex-wife back after she left him. Collins later re-married and divorced again, and then again, inspiring a vast amount of new songs. He has said that he originally wanted to record In The Air Tonight with his band Genesis, but his bandmates didn't like the song because it was "too simple." The Face Value album was more successful then any of the Genesis albums, and after this record the band adopted more of a pop sound. The song's popularity really soared after it appeared in the first episode of Miami Vice, and later was featured on the hugely successful Miami Vice Soundtrack. Phil Collins even appeared in a cameo role as a bad guy on the second season of the show, on an episode titled "Phil the Shill."
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In 1959, 14-year old Brenda Lee recorded her first major hit record - Sweet Nothin's. The song was written by Ronnie Self, who wrote several hits for Lee including I'm Sorry and Everybody Loves Me But You. Lee began performing when she was 5 years old, and when she was 11 an unplanned television appearance landed her a first contract on a regular TV show. In 1958, when she was 13 she recorded Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree. And in 1960 she recorded the chart-topper I'm Sorry - her signature song. In the 1960's Lee had 47 charting hits - the only performers to surpass that were Elvis Presley, The Beatles and Ray Charles. Her record of nine consecutive top ten Billboard hits remained unbroken until Madonna topped it in 1986. Lee was one of the first pop singers to gain a major international following. In 1986, when Producer David Z arranged Prince's worldwide number one hit Kiss, he crafted the sound of the song inspired by the vocals from Brenda Lee's Sweet Nothin's. David Z adapted Lee's vocals to create the distinctive "ah-wah-ah" in the background vocals in Kiss. In 1994, Sweet Nothin's was sampled by The Beatnuts on the track titled Intro, the first track off their debut album Street Level. The song was sampled numerous other times since then, such as in 2013 when it was prominently sampled in Kanye West's Bound 2. In 1947, T-Bone Walker recorded the blues standard Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad). The song would become his signature song, and it later became known simply as Stormy Monday. The song is about a broken-hearted man who longs for his love to return day after day. T-Bone Walker was one of the early pioneers of the electric guitar, and this west coast style blues song is considered one of the most influential songs in guitar history. B.B. King has said that this song inspired him to play the guitar, and the song is included on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Stormy Monday was popularized in 1961 by Bobby "Blue" Bland, who released the song under the title Stormy Monday Blues. As a result of the improper title, the song's royalties were not paid to T-Bone Walker, but rather to Earl Hines - who had recorded a different song titled Stormy Monday Blues. By 1942, Walker has gained the attention of Capitol Records with his extraordinary showmanship, such was playing the guitar behind his neck or while he was doing the splits. He was one of the first artists signed by the label. According to Walker, Call It Stormy Monday was originally recorded in 1940, or in 1942, but the release was delayed due material shortages brought on by the US entering into World War II on December 7, 1941. In 1970, Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh composed the song Box of Rain for his father who was dying of cancer. He asked band lyricist Robert Hunter to put words to the song so he could sing it to his father before he died. Hunter has said he understood how Lesh wanted to aid and comfort his father with this song, and immediately after hearing the music the lyrics wrote itself "as fast as the pen could pull." Lesh would sing this song to his father in his hospital bed in his final days. Box of Rain is the first song on American Beauty, the band's fifth album, and it was sung by Lesh on the album and in concert. This was the first song that the group released with Lesh on lead vocals. The Grateful Dead first performed this song in an emotional acoustic set at Fillmore East in New York City on September 17th, 1970, and they didn't perform it again until late 1972. The song was played on and off, and eventually retired for 13 years - over 750 shows - until it was revived in 1985 leaving stunned fans in tears. Usually the song was preceded with the crowd chanting "we want Phil." On July 9th, 1995, one month before the death of Grateful Dead frontman Jerry Garcia, the eclectic rock band of 30 years played their unintentional final concert at Chicago's Soldier Field. The band played Box of Rain for their second encore at that show - it was the last song the band ever played. In 1925, Empress of the Blues Bessie Smith famously recorded St. Louis Blues - the classic recording featured Louis Armstrong on cornet. The W.C. Handy song was one of the earliest blues songs to become a popular hit, and it had been recorded several times before Bessie Smith's version. Over the years it has been recorded by many artists from Glen Miller to Stevie Wonder - who won 2 Grammy's for his 1999 recording. The song was written in 1914, and it originally appeared in the Charlie Chaplin film The Star Boarder that year. In 1917, singer and actress Ethel Waters was the first known to perform the song in public. In 1929, Bessie Smith's supreme 1925 cover of the song was memorialized in the 2-reel short film St. Louis Blues - her only film appearance. That same year, Louis Armstrong recorded the song with his popular Louis Armstrong Orchestra. Both Bessie Smith's original recording and Louis Armstrong's 1929 recording of St. Louis Blues have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The St. Louis NHL team, the St Louis Blues, got their name from the forever popular blues song - which is played at the beginning of every game. During the National Anthem at every home game, as the song finishes with "and the home of the brave", the crowd shouts out "and the home of the blues." In the 1920's, Bessie Smith was the highest-paid black entertainer in America, yet after her death her grave sat unmarked for 33 years until a headstone was placed there by Janis Joplin in 1970. View the full 1929 St. Louis Blues film HERE. In 1929, Fats Waller first recorded his early jazz and swing standard Ain't Misbehavin'. The song was written along with Harry Brooks and lyricist Andy Raza, and it was introduced in the 1929 off-Broadway revue Connie's Hot Chocolates. The show was so successful it was moved from Harlem to the Hudson Theatre on Broadway, where it was billed simply as Hot Chocolates. The Broadway run of the popular all-black revue featured Louis Armstrong's Broadway debut as the orchestra director. Armstrong, who was well-known at the time, would steal the show when he stepped out of the orchestra pit to play a trumpet solo on stage for the show's reprise of this song. Fats Waller personally taught Armstrong the song. Louis Armstrong was one of several successful recordings of Ain't Misbehavin' in 1929, and it would become his all-time best selling record. Armstrong eventually would leave the show, personally selecting Cab Calloway to replace him as orchestra director. After leaving the show, Armstrong and Waller were regular performers at Connie's Inn in Harlem. The nightclub, like it's rival Cotton Club, were known for featuring black musicians performing for a whites-only audience. In 2013, Alicia Keys performed Ain't Misbehavin' in the Leonardo DiCaprio film The Great Gatsby. In 1961, beloved Japanese singer and actor Kyu Sakamoto topped the charts in Japan with his hit song Ue O Muite Aruko. The song would become an international hit, and one of the best selling songs of all-time. In 1962, British Pye Records executive Louis Benjamin heard the song while in Japan, and he enlisted the band Kenny Ball & his Jazzmen to record the song as an instrumental. Benjamin re-named the song Sukiyaki - named after his favorite Japanese meal. The song hit #10 on the UK charts. The following year a US disc jockey who had heard the song obtained the original Sakamoto version, which he began to play on the radio using the title Sukiyaki. The song became so popular that Capital Records obtained the US rights and released an American pressing of the song - it soon topped the US Hot 100 and the Adult Contemporary charts, staying at #1 for several weeks. In 1963, US country singer Clyde Beavers released a less successful first version with English lyrics. FFW to 1981 - the song was back on the US Charts again when disco group A Taste of Honey released a version with their own alternate lyrics, hitting #3 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Adult Contemporary. The song charted again in the US in 1994 when R&B group 4 P.M. hit #5 on the Top 40 with their version of the song. Sukiyaki is the only American #1 hit song ever with Japanese lyrics, or recorded by a Japanese singer. In 1985, rapper Slick Rick famously borrowed the first verse of the song in the chorus of his classic hit La-Di-Da-Di, featuring Doug E. Fresh. The song had originally been recorded with a sample from the A Taste of Honey cover, but the sample wasn't cleared so the part was crudely sung on the officially released single. The day before Slick Rick officially released La-Di-Da-Di, 43-year old Kyu Sakamoto was one of 520 people that died in the tragic August 12th crash of Japan Air Lines flight 123. Four people survived the crash - it was the deadliest airplane crash in history. In the summer of 1981, Queen and David Bowie recorded Under Pressure in an impromptu recording session in Montreux, Switzerland. Queen and Bowie were recording music separately in Montreux at the time, and a by-chance run in lead to the idea of working together in the studio. Freddie Mercury had first met David Bowie 12 years earlier when Mercury worked at a boot stall in Kensington Market and fitted a pair of boots for Bowie. The Under Pressure recording session was said to have been somewhat strained as Queen was unaccustomed to having the input of an additional fifth person. Freddie Mercury and David Bowie had very different visions of how the song would go, and how it should be mixed. Mercury was responsible for much of how the song developed musically, and Bowie was primarily responsible for the lyrical development. Due to the song being unplanned, and the busy tour schedules of Queen and Bowie, the highly acclaimed music video for the song was made using a mish-mash of video clips and stock footage. The song was the second #1 hit for Queen, and the third for Bowie. When rapper Vanilla Ice sampled the baseline of Under Pressure for his 1990 hit song Ice Ice Baby he didn't clear or credit the sample, causing a lawsuit that would give songwriting credit and pay royalities to the members of Queen and David Bowie. On his follow-up hit Play That Funky Music, Vanilla Ice was sued again after failing to clear the sample he took from the identically named song by the band Wild Cherry . In April 1972, Apollo II took man from the earth to the surface of the moon for the fifth (and next to last) time. The day after the rocket took off on it's 11-day journey, Elton John released his classic rock ballad Rocket Man. It was the lead single off his upcoming album Honkey Chateau, and it became his biggest hit at the time. The song was inspired by the 1951 Ray Bradbury science fiction short story The Illustrated Man. The song was written by Bernard Taupin and produced by Gus Dudgeon - the producer behind David Bowie's 1969 song Space Oddity. Despite that, and the fact that the two songs inspired by space exploration coincided directly with Apollo missions, Bowie and Dudgeon insisted that Bowie's Space Oddity had no influence. Before long "Rocket Man" became a nickname for Elton John, and in 1973 he launched a record label named Rocket Records. In 2019, a biographical musical film about Elton John was released titled Rocketman. Amongst the movie's many awards, Elton John and longtime writing partner Bernard Taupin won an Oscar, Golden Globe and Critics Choice Award for Best Original Song for the film's original song - (I'm Gonna) Love Me Again. David Bowie wrote and recorded the song Space Oddity in 1969. The song was released on his second album - his second self-titled album - and it was released as a single. The pressings were rushed to coincide with Apollo 11's historic first moon landing on July 20th, 1969. The song was inspired by Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Oddesey. Bowie's Space Oddity was used by the BBC as background music for the broadcast of moon landing, helping the song hit #5 on the UK charts. The song didn't get as much attention in the United States, and only managed to place #124 on the charts a month after the Apollo 11 landing. By 1971 Bowie had gained attention in the United States with his hit song Changes, and later with Jean Genie. In 1972 Bowies second album was re-released in the US after being re-titled Space Oddity. And the title song was re-released in the US where it became his first US Top 40 hit, peaking at #15. In 1975 the song was re-released in the UK, and it became his first #1 hit there. |
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