Saturday, July 22, 2017

22 JULY

In Music History

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2010Electric blues guitarist Phillip Walker, known for his 1959 hit single "Hello My Darling," dies of heart failure at age 73.
2008Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor foots the bill for the band's seventh studio album, The Slip, which is released digitally on their website for free with the tag, "This one's on me." Fans wanting a physical copy, however, will have to shell out their money for a limited-edition two months later. (NIN also did this four months earlier with the free digital release of Ghosts I–IV, an album made up of almost entirely instrumental, unnamed tracks).
2005Eugene Record (lead singer of Chi-Lites) dies of cancer at age 64.
2002Jazz singer Marion Montgomery dies of lung cancer at age 67. A non-smoker, the "Maybe the Morning" singer blamed her illness on the second-hand smoke she regularly ingested while working in nightclubs.
1996Donovan has to cancel a North American tour when he is denied entry to the US because of a 1966 marijuana possession conviction.
1996The Smokin' Grooves tour, the first major hip-hop traveling festival, kicks off a 33-date trek with a show in Sacramento, California. Artists include A Tribe Called QuestFugeesCypress Hill and Busta Rhymes.
1989De La Soul's "Me, Myself and I" becomes a hit on the Hot 100 chart, where it peaks at #34.
1987Morris Albert is found guilty of plagiarizing the 1956 French composition "Pour Toi" on his hit "Feelings." Louis Gasté, the composer of "Pour Toi," is added to the writers credit.
1977Shaken by the deaths of his sister Rhonda and good friend Freddie Prinze, Tony Orlando says on stage at a show in Cohasset, Massachusetts, "This is my last day as a performer." He spends some time recovering, and returns to the stage in November.
1973Daniel Jones (instrumentalist of Savage Garden) is born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England, but will be raised in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
1973Larry Finnegan dies of a brain tumor at age 34. Known for the 1962 hit "Dear One."
1972The Who release "Join Together."
1971The DoorsL.A. Woman album is certified Gold.
1969Aretha Franklin, struggling with the breakup of her marriage, is arrested for causing a disturbance in an incident at a Detroit parking lot.
1969The Beatles record "Come Together" and "Oh! Darling."
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Little Richard Says God Saved "An Old Homosexual Like Me"

1979
Little Richard, who has been preaching of his salvation throughout the United States, makes his famous statement, "If God can save an old homosexual like me, he can save anybody."

The flamboyant singer, who was thrown out of his home as a teenager when his sexual orientation clashed with his family's Pentecostal faith, first renounced the "Devil's music" in 1957 while touring in Sydney, Australia. A blazing fireball in the sky - which turned out to be the launching of the Sputnik 1 satellite - warned of his eternal damnation and he boogied his way to Alabama to save his soul (and study theology). Hits like "Tutti Frutti," "Long Tall Sally" and "Good Golly Miss Molly" were relics of a sinful past for the newly ordained singer, who switched to gospel music and founded the Little Richard Evangelistic Team. 

The lure of rock 'n roll was too strong, however, and he returned to secular music just a few years later with a European tour and the televised special The Little Richard Spectacular, a ratings bonanza. But he couldn't replicate his success on the charts and soon fell into a spiral of drug and alcohol abuse. God came calling again in 1977 and Richard returned to evangelism, releasing the gospel album God's Beautiful City in 1979.

That same year, Richard stands before a congregation in North Richmond, California, and utters his famous testament of faith, simultaneously confirming the long-argued topic of his sexual orientation: "If God can save an old homosexual like me, he can save anybody." 

Richard's stance against secular music - not to mention his controversial comments against homosexuality, which he later calls "unnatural" and "contagious" - does little to anger the rock gods of the time (perhaps they are too occupied with Bob Dylan's much-publicized conversion to Christianity). Now the Reverend Richard Pennimen, he presides over Bruce Springsteen's wedding to Julianne Phillips in 1985 and, the following year, is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

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