BIRTHDAYS
1915: Billie Holiday
1935: Robert “Bobby” Bare
1938: Freddie Hubbard
1943: Mick Abrahams (Blodwyn Pig / Jethro Tull)
1947: Florian Schneider-Esleben (Kraftwerk)
1949: John Oates (Hall & Oates)
1951: Janis Fink a.k.a. Janis Ian
EVENTS
1962: Keith Richards & Mick Jagger met Brian Jones at Ealing Jazz Club.
1975: Guitarist, Ritchie Blackmore quit Deep Purple, having formed his own band, Rainbow.
1979: The California Music Festival at L.A. Memorial Coliseum featured Aerosmith, Van Halen, Cheap Trick & others.
1981: Death of Kit Lambert, manager of The Who [aged 45] .
1987: Whitesnake released the album ‘1987’.
1988: Alice Cooper accidentally hung himself at a rehearsal in London, but was saved by a roadie.
1994: Death of singer, Lee Brilleaux of Dr. Feelgood [aged 41].
2020: Death of singer / songwriter / guitarist, John Prine [aged 73].
2023: Death of bassist, John Regan of Ace Frehley’s Comet & Peter Frampton’s band [aged 71]. He has also recorded with David Bowie, David Lee Roth, The Rolling Stones, Stephen Stills, John Waite, Dave Edmunds, Robin Trower, Scandal & Billy Idol.
2023: Death of guitarist, Ian Bairnson [aged 69]. Ian founded Pilot in 1973, before joining Alan Parsons Project (he played on all APP albums, his most notable guitar solo being on “I Wouldn’t Want To Be Like You”). Bairnson can be heard on the first four Kate Bush LPs, including his famous solo on “Wuthering Heights”.
The late Florian Schneider-Esleben, founder of Kraftwerk and a member of that band until 2006, would have been 77 today. He passed away 0n 21 April, 2020. Florian (pictured at front) was a singer / songwriter & multi-instrumentalist, playing synthesizer, guitar, flute, saxophone, drums, percussion and violin. David Bowie was influenced by Kraftwerk (particularly during the Berlin trilogy of albums) and showed his respect for Florian by naming a track on the “Heroes” LP after him (“V-2 Schneider”). Here is the most famous song that Schneider-Esleben created with Kraftwerk.
