Sunday, September 17, 2017

17 SEPTEMBER

In Music History

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2014Country singer George Hamilton IV dies at age 77. A fixture on the country chart throughout the '60s and '70s, he hit #1 with "Abilene" in 1963.
2013Country/rockabilly singer Marvin Rainwater dies of heart failure in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Known for late-'50s hits "Gonna Find Me a Bluebird" and "Whole Lotta Woman."
2012With nine days left in The Beach Boys50th anniversary reunion tour, lead singer Mike Love announces that he and band member Bruce Johnston will continue touring under the group name without the other three current members: Brian Wilson, Al Jardine and David Marks. Squabbles ensue, and after tour, Wilson and Love, who are cousins, have no further contact.
2011Huey Lewis and the News play at the 54th Monterey Jazz Festival in California.
2009Avril Lavigne and Sum 41's Deryck Whibley go their separate ways after being married since 2006. 
2007Barry Manilow pulls out of an appearance on The View when he refuses to be interviewed by conservative co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
2006Rock guitarist Al Casey dies at age 69 in Phoenix, Arizona. Often worked with Lee Hazlewood ("The Fool," "Surfin' Hootenanny") and Duane Eddy (for whom he wrote the early hit "Ramrod").
2003Former Smashing Pumpkins frontman and Zwan leader Billy Corgan presents a multimedia poetry performance in his Chicago hometown, opening the Poetry Center of Chicago's 31st Annual Reading Series at the Art Institute of Chicago's Rubloff Auditorium.
2000The governor of Georgia inducts Trisha Yearwood into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
1999Traditional pop singer Frankie Vaughandies of heart failure in Oxford, England, at age 71. 
1999It is announced that rap entrepreneur Percy Miller (Master P) has signed an NBA contract with the Toronto Raptors. During the NBA summer league, Miller averaged 24 points, six rebounds and eight assists.
1997Fleetwood Mac begin their first tour in 20 years at the Meadows Music Theatre in Hartford, Connecticut. The tour would produce a live album called The Dance.
1996Bluesman Jessie Hill, known for "Ooh Poo Pah Doo" (1960), dies of heart and renal failure in New Orleans, Louisiana, at age 63. 
1994Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilotsmarries his first wife, Janina Castaneda. The STP song "Sour Girl" is about her.
1991Instead of releasing a double album, which they decide would be too expensive for fans, Guns N' Roses issue both Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II on the same day.
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Pink Floyd's Movie The Wall Opens In Theaters

1982
Pink Floyd's seminal double album The Wall makes it to the big screen as a feature-length musical. Few expected the sprawling concept album to be turned into a feature film, but the band's celluloid collaboration with director Alan Parker and animator Gerald Scarfe becomes a surprise box office hit and a cult classic.

The record company had intended to make a film of the band's lavish supporting tour, but after test footage of Pink Floyd playing live fails to make the grade, the project is reinvented as a heavily symbolic mixture of live action and hand-drawn animation - told with almost no conventional dialogue. British filmmaker and Floyd fan Alan Parker, director of acclaimed musicals Bugsy Malone and Fame, is attached to the project along with satirical cartoonist Gerald Scarfe.

Irish singer Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats (years before he tries to feed the world) plays the lead role of Floyd "Pink" Pinkerton, a part originally earmarked for Waters. Scenes of the protagonist's descent into a drug-fueled nervous breakdown, and his eventual rebirth in the mold of a neo-fascist dictator are interspersed with gritty flashbacks to key moments in his life. Each event forms a brick in the metaphorical wall Pink builds around his feelings, culminating in Pink putting himself on trial in a lengthy animated scene.

Parker, Scarfe and Waters frequently clash during filming, with Parker later describing the movie's production as one of the most miserable experiences of his creative life. Pink Floyd's David Gilmour attributes the making of The Wallas the start of his escalating conflict with Waters, which eventually leads to the band's split.

The movie is a surprise success, initially opening in just one theater but eventually climbing to #3 in the box office charts after a nationwide release (there's often a funny smell in the theaters when the film is showing, and the concessions sell an unusual number of snacks). It later enjoys a second lease of life as a cult classic thanks to its release on home video.

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