Today in Rock History – 17th MAY:

BIRTHDAYS
1949: Andy Latimer (Camel)
1949: Bill Bruford (Yes / King Crimson / UK / Bruford)
1955: Claude Schnell (Dio)
1959: Paul Dianno (Iron Maiden)
1964: Russell Gilbrook (Uriah Heep)
1965: Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails)
1973: Josh Homme (Kyuss / Queens of the Stone Age / Eagles of Death Metal / Them Crooked Vultures)
1974: Andrea Corr (The Corrs)

EVENTS
1976: Rainbow released their second album, ‘Rising‘. I will never forget when it happened, as I loved the first LP, ‘Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow’ and was hanging out for the new one. Happened to hear on the radio (4XO in Dunedin) that they had a pre-release copy, which they were going to give away! First person to call in and answer the question won the record… the tough question was “Who is the keyboard player in Deep Purple?”. Yes, I won… a few days before it was actually released! I reckon ‘Rising‘ is the best Rainbow album and is still one of my favourite records. 🙂

1996: Johnny “Guitar” Watson died on stage at Yokohama Cafe, Japan [aged 61].
2017: Death of guitarist, Kevin Stanton, of Mi-Sex [aged 61].
2022: Death of composer / keyboardist, Evangelos Papathanassiou a.k.a. Vangelis [aged 79].
2023: Death of bassist / singer, Alasdair “Algy” Ward of The Saints, The Damned & Tank [aged 63].

Happy Birthday to drummer supreme, Mr. Bill Bruford! He’s 74 today… and since Robert Fripp celebrated his birthday yesterday, it’s only fitting that we have a clip which features both gentlemen (late great bassist / singer / songwriter, John Wetton was on the original version too). The mighty “Red” from prog royalty ~ King Crimson!