Frank Beacham's Journal

Janis Joplin was born 79 years ago today

Janis Joplin was born 79 years ago today.

A singer-songwriter, Joplin first rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of the psychedelic-acid rock band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and later as a solo artist with her more soulful and bluesy backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band.

She was one of the more popular acts at the Monterey Pop Festival and later became one of the major attractions to the Woodstock Festival and the Festival Express train tour.

Joplin charted five singles, and other popular songs from her four-year career. They include "Down on Me," "Summertime," "Piece of My Heart," "Ball 'n' Chain," "Maybe," "To Love Somebody," "Kozmic Blues," "Work Me, Lord," "Cry Baby," "Mercedes Benz," and her only #1 hit, "Me and Bobby McGee."

Joplin was well known for her performing abilities, and her fans referred to her stage presence as "electric." At the height of her career, she was known as "The Queen of Rock and Roll" as well as "The Queen of Psychedelic Soul," and became known as Pearl amongst her friends.

She was also a painter, dancer and music arranger.

On October 4, 1970, her producer, Paul Rothchild, became concerned when Joplin failed to show up at Sunset Sound Recorders for a recording session.

Full Tilt Boogie's road manager, John Cooke, drove to the Landmark Hotel in Hollywood where she was staying. He saw Joplin's psychedelically painted Porsche 356C Cabriolet in the parking lot.

Upon entering Joplin's room, he found her dead on the floor beside her bed. The official cause of death was an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol. She was 27 years old.

Cooke believes that Joplin had accidentally been given heroin that was much more potent than normal, as several of her dealer's other customers also overdosed that week.

Joplin's death stunned her fans and shocked the music world, especially when coupled with the death just sixteen days earlier of another rock icon, Jimi Hendrix, also at age 27.

Music historian Tom Moon wrote that Joplin had "a devastatingly original voice." Music columnist Jon Pareles of the New York Times wrote that Joplin as an artist was "overpowering and deeply vulnerable." Author Megan Terry claimed that Joplin was the female version of Elvis Presley in her ability to captivate an audience.

Here, Joplin performs “Little Girl Blue” on Tom Jones’s TV show, 1969

Dolly Parton is 76 years old today

Dolly Parton is 76 years old today.

A singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, actress, author and philanthropist, Parton is best known for her work in country music. Beginning her career as a child performer, she issued a few modestly successful singles from 1959 through the mid-1960s, showcasing her distinctive soprano voice.

Pardon came to greater prominence in 1967 as a featured performer on singer Porter Wagoner's weekly television program. Their first duet single, a cover of Tom Paxton's "The Last Thing on My Mind," was a Top 10 hit on the country singles charts, and led to several successful albums before they ended their partnership in 1974.

Moving to mainstream pop music, Parton's 1977 single "Here You Come Again" was a success on both the country and pop charts.

A string of pop-country hits followed into the mid-1980s, the most successful being her 1981 hit, "9 to 5" (from the film of the same name), and her 1983 duet with Kenny Rogers, "Islands in the Stream," both of which topped the U.S. pop and country singles charts.

A pair of albums recorded with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris were among her later successes. In the late 1990s, Parton returned to classic country/bluegrass with a series of acclaimed recordings.

Parton is the most honored female country performer of all time. Achieving 25 gold, platinum and multi-platinum awards, she has had 25 songs reach #1, a record for a female artist. She has 41 career Top 10 country albums, a record for any artist and she has 110 career charted singles over the past 40 years.

As an actress, she starred in the movies 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Rhinestone, A Smoky Mountain Christmas, Steel Magnolias, Wild Texas Wind, Gnomeo & Juliet, Straight Talk, Unlikely Angel, Blue Valley Songbird and Joyful Noise.

Here, Parton and Miley Cyrus perform “Jolene”

Owsley Stanley was born 87 years ago today

Owsley Stanley was born 87 years ago today.

Stanley played a pivotal role in the San Francisco counterculture of the 1960s. As a crafts-person, he became best known simply as “Owsley” – the LSD "cook" (underground chemist).

Under the professional name of "Bear," he worked with the Grateful Dead's international fan "family."

Bear was an early soundman for The Grateful Dead, a band he met when Ken Kesey invited them to an Owsley Acid test party. As their sound engineer, Bear frequently recorded live tapes behind his mixing board and helped "The Dead" become the first performers since Les Paul to custom-develop high-fidelity audio components and sound systems.

Stanley was the first private individual to manufacture mass quantities of LSD. Between 1965 and 1967, Stanley produced more than 1.25 million doses of LSD.

Stanley died in an automobile accident in Australia on March 12, 2011 at age 76.

Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers was born 83 years ago today

Phil Everly of the Everly Brothers was born 83 years ago today.

With brother, Don Everly, the duo is known as the Everly Brothers — country-influenced rock and roll performers — known for steel-string guitar playing and close harmony singing. Their father was the musician, Ike Everly.

Don and Phil Everly both played guitar and used vocal harmony mostly based on parallel thirds. With this, each line can often stand on its own as a melody line. This was in contrast to classic harmony lines which, while working well alongside the melody, were not as melodic by themselves.

For most of their recordings, Don sang the baritone part and Phil the tenor part. One exception was on "Devoted To You." Although Don was low and Phil was high, they switched lead and harmony back and forth.

Don almost always performed lines that were sung solo (for example, the verses of "Bye Bye Love"). Among the exceptions to this rule was the 1965 single, "It's All Over," where Phil sang the song's solo lines.

In the late 1950s, the Everly Brothers were the rock 'n' roll youth movement's addition to close harmony vocal groups of which many were family bands. Among the Everly's famous counterparts in country music were The Delmore Brothers, The Louvin Brothers, Jim & Jesse (McReynolds) and The Osborne Brothers.

The duo's harmony singing had a strong influence on rock groups of the 1960s. The Beatles, The Beach Boys and Simon & Garfunkel developed their early singing styles by performing Everly covers.

The Everly Brothers had 35 Billboard Top 100 singles — 26 in the Top 40. They hold the record for the most Top 100 singles by any duo, and trail only Hall & Oates for the most Top 40 singles by a duo.

Phil Everly died on January 3, 2014. The cause of his death was complications attributed to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (a combination of emphysema and bronchitis), brought on by a lifetime of smoking.

Don Everly died in August, 2021, at age 84.

Here, the Everly Brothers perform their first hit, “Bye Bye Love,” in 1985

David Ruffin, one of the lead singers of the Temptations, was born 81 years ago today

The Temptations with (L-R) Otis Williams, David Ruffin, Eddie Kendricks, Melvin Franklin and Paul Williams, 1965

Photo by Echoes

David Ruffin was born 81 years ago today.

A soul singer and musician, Ruffin is most famous for his work as one of the lead singers of the Temptations from 1964 to 1968 (or the group's "Classic Five" period as it was later known). He was the lead voice on such famous songs as "My Girl" and "Ain't Too Proud to Beg."

Known for his unique raspy and anguished tenor vocals, Ruffin was ranked as one of the great singers of his generation. Fellow Motown recording artist Marvin Gaye once said admiringly of Ruffin that, "I heard in [his voice] a strength my own voice lacked."

After a successful month-long tour of England, Ruffin died on June 1, 1991, in a Philadelphia hospital of "an adverse reaction to drugs" — cocaine.

Although the cause of death was ruled an accident, Ruffin's family and friends suspected foul play, claiming that a money belt containing the proceeds from the tour ($300,000) was missing from his body. He had just finished recording the single "Hurt the One You Love" for Motorcity Records.

Ruffin was 50 when he died.

Here, Ruffin performs with Eddie Kendricks, “My Girl”

Ruffin on a break between shows

Steve Earle is 67 years old today

Steve Earle, New York City, 2010

Photo by Frank Beacham

Steve Earle is 67 years old today.

A singer-songwriter, record producer, author and actor, Earle grew up near San Antonio, Texas, and began learning the guitar at age 11. He started his career as a songwriter in Nashville and released his first EP in 1982.

Earle’s breakthrough album was Guitar Town in 1986. Since then, Earle has released 15 other studio albums. His songs have been recorded by Travis Tritt, Vince Gill, Shawn Colvin and Emmy Lou Harris. He has appeared in film and television, has written a novel, a play and a book of short stories.

Earle is reported to have run away from home at age 14 to follow his idol, singer-songwriter Townes Van Zandt around Texas. He was "rebellious" as a kid and dropped out of school at the age of 16.

He moved to Houston with his 19-year-old uncle, who was also a musician, where he married and worked odd jobs. While in Houston, Earle finally met Van Zandt, who became his hero and role model.

In 1974, at the age of 19, Earle moved to Nashville and began working blue-collar jobs during the day and playing music at night.

During this period, he wrote songs and played bass guitar in Guy Clark's band and on Clark's 1975 album, Old No. 1.

Earle appeared in the 1975 film, Heartworn Highways, a documentary on the Nashville music scene which included Guy Clark, Townes van Zandt and Rodney Crowell.

He lived in Nashville for several years and obtained a job as a staff songwriter for a publishing company called Sunbury Dunbar.

In the 1980s, Earle worked as a songwriter for the publishers Roy Dea and Pat Clark. A song he co-wrote, "When You Fall in Love," was recorded by Johnny Lee and made #14 on the country charts in 1982.

Carl Perkins recorded Earle's song, "Mustang Wine," and two of his songs were recorded by Zella Lehr. Later, Dea and Clark created an independent record label called LSI and invited Earle to began recording his own material on their label. Earle released an EP called, Pink & Black, in 1982 featuring his band, the Dukes.

Acting as Earle's manager, John Lomax sent the EP to Epic Records and they signed Earle to a recording contract in 1983. In 1983, Earle signed a record deal with CBS and recorded a "neo-rockabilly album.”

Earle released his first full length album, Guitar Town, on MCA Records. The title track became a Top Ten single in 1986 and his song "Goodbye's All We've Got Left" reached the Top Ten in 1987.

That same year, he released a compilation of earlier recordings entitled, Early Tracks, and an album with the Dukes, called Exit 0, which received critical acclaim for its blend of country and rock.

Earle's songs have been recorded by Joan Baez, The Pretenders, The Proclaimers, Eddi Reader, The Highwaymen, Waylon Jennings, Levon Helm, Emmylou Harris, Percy Sledge and Johnny Cash.

Here, Earle performs “Guitar Town” in 1985

Heartworn Highways

In 1976, in Heartworn Highways, producer Graham Leader and director James Szalapski documented the outlaw singer/songwriter scene that extended from Austin and Nashville.

Included were then relative unknowns Steve Earle, Rodney Crowell and John Hiatt, plus their musical mentors Townes Van Zandt and Guy Clark.

Born was Heartworn Highways, a cult classic film among fans of the genre. In the relaxed manner of the handmade documentary, we're given a tour of Townes Van Zandt's backyard, where we see dogs running loose while he is chugging whiskey and shooting guns.

Townes picks up a guitar and sings the poignant "Waitin' Around To Die" in his kitchen, an elderly neighbor breaks down in tears. The film follows David Allan Coe to the Tennessee State Prison to watch a performance. Charlie Daniels is shown on a small stage in front of a crowd of near-riotous fans.

A gang of buddies, including Rodney Crowell, gathers around a table at Christmas time to sing and pick guitars, showing some very early work by Steve Earle. The structure of the film is very loose; at times almost surreal, especially viewed through the fish-eye lens of time.

There is no real story to the movie, only the tales which are told in the lives of people who love music and make it not for a living.

Here’s the entire film

Mick Taylor is 73 years old today

Mick Taylor is 73 years old today.

An English musician, Taylor is best known as a former member of John Mayall's Bluesbreakers (1966–69) and The Rolling Stones (1969–74).

He is regarded by many Stones aficionados as the best musician ever to play with the band, and appeared on some of their classic albums including Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main St.

Since resigning from the Rolling Stones in December, 1974, Taylor has worked with numerous other artists and released several solo albums.

Eartha Kitt was born 95 years ago today

Eartha Kitt was born 95 years ago today.

A singer, actress, dancer and cabaret star, Kitt was perhaps best known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 hit recordings of "C'est Si Bon" and the enduring Christmas novelty smash, "Santa Baby."

Orson Welles once called her the "most exciting woman in the world."

She took over the role of Catwoman for the third and final season of the 1960s Batman television series, replacing Julie Newmar, who was unavailable due to other commitments.

She also voiced Yzma on Disney's The Emperor's New Groove and its television spinoff, The Emperor's New School, earning five Emmy Awards in the process — the last shortly before her death.

Kitt died in 2008 at the age of 81.

Here is Kitt performing "C'est Si Bon"

In 1967, David Mason, 40, recorded the piccolo trumpet solo for The Beatle's “Penny Lane” at Abbey Road Studios in London

In 1967, David Mason, 40, recorded the piccolo trumpet solo for The Beatle's “Penny Lane” at Abbey Road Studios in London.

He was paid the equivalent of $42 for his performance.

In August, 1987, the trumpet he used was sold at a Sotheby's auction for $10,846.

Mason also contributed to several other Beatles songs, including "A Day in the Life," "Magical Mystery Tour," "All You Need Is Love" and "It's All Too Much.”

He died of leukemia in April, 2011 at the age of 85.

Planet Waves, the fourteenth studio album by Bob Dylan, was released on this day in 1974 — 48 years ago

Planet Waves, the fourteenth studio album by Bob Dylan, was released on this day in 1974 — 48 years ago.

Dylan is supported on the album by the Band, with whom he embarked on a major reunion tour following its release (documented on the live album, Before the Flood).

With a successful tour, Planet Waves was a hit, enjoying a brief stay at #1 on the U.S. Billboard charts — a first for Dylan — and #7 in the UK.

The album was originally set to be titled Ceremonies of the Horsemen, a reference to the song "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," from the 1965 album, Bringing It All Back Home.

The release was delayed two weeks when Dylan decided to change the title at the last minute.