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Born on this date in 1939 in Chicago, Illinois: gospel and R&B singing extraordinaire, Mavis Staples. Since joining her family’s singing group The Staple Singers at a very young age, Mavis has been recognized as one of the premiere vocalists of her time. Her long career has been filled with many hit records, a prominent role as a civil rights activist and plenty of collaborative work with many other musical legends such as Bob Dylan, The Band and Prince. She’s recently worked with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and indie singer/songwriter M. Ward on a series of outstanding solo albums that she’s released in recent years.
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Today in rock history: on this date in 1967, soul singer Otis Redding released his fantastic live concert album, Live In Europe. Recorded while on a traveling show that showcased Redding’s fellow artists on the Stax/Volt record labels, the performance on the record was recorded in Paris and features label mates Booker T. & the MG’s as Otis’s backing band. This was the only live recording released while the legendary performer was still alive; he would tragically die five months after this release in a plane crash. The album was a success, as was the live version of “Shake” that was released as a single.
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Released on this date in 1979: Low Budget, the seventeenth studio album by The Kinks. Although not a huge hit in its native England, the record was a massive success in America. Released during what is referred to as the band’s “arena rock” phase, the record received lots of radio airplay in the States and wound up being one of the band’s best selling records in America. Singles from the album included “Pressure,” “Catch Me Now I’m Falling” and “(Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman” which was even released in an extended, disco single version in hopes of scoring a dance floor hit since disco records were so popular at the time.
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Today in rock history: on this date in 1964, The Beatles released their third album, A Hard Day’s Night in the U.K. Although the album had been released in America two weeks prior to this date (albeit with a totally different track listing and a different cover), the US release was marketed more as a soundtrack for the film of the same title, whereas this was the proper full length album that happened to feature music from the film as well. The album shot straight up to the no.1 spot on U.K. album charts and its American counterpart did the same. The British version also featured the singles “Can’t Buy Me Love” as well as the title track. Incidentally, this was the only original Beatles release that consisted only of original John Lennon/Paul McCartney compositions and contained no cover songs and no contributions from any other band members.
This article appears in Jul 6-13, 2017.
