60's & Beyond

11/04/2025

Lisa Stansfield is 59 years old today.

Lisa Stansfield's official music video for 'All Around The World'. Click to listen to Lisa Stansfield on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/LisaSSpotify?IQid=LisaSA...

11/04/2025

Good Friday Morning!

10/04/2025

The late Ricky Valance was born on this day in 1936.

Valance, born David Spencer, was a Welsh pop singer. He was best known for the UK number one single "Tell Laura I Love Her".

The BBC refused to play teenage tragedy songs like "Tell Laura I Love Her", but, thanks to airplay on Radio Luxembourg, Valance was rewarded with a number 1 hit in September 1960. Valance thus became the first Welsh man to reach the top spot – Shirley Bassey being the first Welsh female with "As I Love You" in February 1959. The record was his only chart hit in the UK.

After topping the UK Singles Chart, Valance appeared in the 1961 A Song For Europe competition, hoping to represent the UK in the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest. His song, "Why Can't We?", placed third out of the nine entries; the winner was "Are You Sure?" performed by the Allisons.

Further singles included "Movin' Away" and "Jimmy's Girl". Over 100,000 copies were sold of "Jimmy's Girl", and "Movin' Away" made it to number one in Australia and Scandinavia.

He died on 12 June 2020. He was 84.

10/04/2025

The late Bobby Smith was born on this day in 1936.

Bobby Smith, also spelled Bobbie, was an American R&B singer notable as the principal lead singer of the classic Motown/Philly group, The Spinners (also known as the Detroit Spinners or the Motown Spinners), throughout its history.

Smith had been the group's lead singer since its inception in 1954, having sung lead vocals on The Spinners first hit record in 1961, "That's What Girls Are Made For" (which has been inaccurately credited to the group's mentor and former Moonglows lead singer, the late Harvey Fuqua). Smith also sang lead on most of their Motown material during the 1960s, such as the charting singles like "Truly Yours" (1966) and "I'll Always Love You" (1965); almost all of the group's pre-Motown material on Fuqua's Tri-Phi Records label, and also on The Spinners' biggest Atlantic Records hits. These included "I'll Be Around", "Could It Be I'm Falling in Love", "They Just Can't Stop It the (Games People Play)".

In 1974, they scored their only #1 Pop hit with "Then Came You" (sung by Smith, in collaboration with superstar Dionne Warwick). All four of the above Bobby Smith-led songs were Certified Gold by the R.I.A.A.

On June 30, 1976, they received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The Spinners were inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame in 2015 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023.

Smith battled lung cancer, and died of pneumonia and influenza on March 16, 2013, at the age of 76.

10/04/2025

The late Eddie Hazel was born on this day in 1950.

Hazel was an American guitarist and singer in early funk music who played lead guitar with Parliament-Funkadelic.

His ten-minute guitar solo in the Funkadelic song "Maggot Brain" is hailed as "one of the greatest solos of all time on any instrument".

Hazel officially quit Funkadelic in late 1971 over financial disputes with Clinton, though Hazel contributed to the group sporadically over the next several years.

For the 1974 Funkadelic album Standing on the Verge of Getting It On, Hazel co-wrote all of the album's songs. On six of those songs the songwriting credit was in the name of Grace Cook, Hazel's mother. Hazel also had a significant presence as arranger and lead guitarist on the same year's Parliament album, Up For The Down Stroke.

He was completely absent from One Nation Under a Groove (1978), Funkadelic's most commercially successful album. Hazel made another prominent appearance in "Man's Best Friend" on the George Clinton album Computer Games (1982), as well as the track "Pumping It Up" from the P-Funk All Stars album Urban Dancefloor Guerillas.

On December 23, 1992, Hazel died from internal bleeding and liver failure. He was 42 years old.

Hazel was a posthumous inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997 with fifteen other members of Parliament-Funkadelic.

10/04/2025

Katrina Leskanich is 65 years old today.

Leskanich is an American musician and the former lead singer of British-American pop rock band Katrina and the Waves.

The Katrina and the Waves album was a substantial critical and commercial success, and the group had a worldwide hit with the song "Walking on Sunshine," (No. 9 US, No. 8 UK, a completely re-recorded, and substantially rearranged version of the song when compared to its initial 1983 Canada-only release). A Grammy award nomination for "Best New Artist" followed, as did constant touring, both of which helped to spur sales of new releases. A follow-up single to "Walking on Sunshine" called "Do You Want Crying" (written by de la Cruz) also became a top 40 US hit, reaching No. 37 in the late summer of 1985.

The band's follow-up album, entitled Waves, did not meet with the same measure of success as the first album. The album did spin off a minor UK and US hit in the form of the Rew-penned "Is That It?" (No. 70 US, No. 82 UK). "Sun Street" (a de la Cruz composition) was a UK Top 30 hit in 1986. However, Capitol dropped the band after the Waves album failed to meet expectations. The band subsequently recorded a 1989 album for Capitol-distributed SBK Records called Break of Hearts, a harder, more rock-oriented effort than their previous releases. The album included "That's the Way", which reached No. 16 in the US.

Throughout the 1990s, Katrina and the Waves recorded fairly steadily, though most releases were available only in continental Europe and/or Canada. They also recorded the song "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" with Eric Burdon for the TV series "China Beach" in 1990.

On May 3, 1997, after having somewhat faded into obscurity, the band won the Eurovision Song Contest 1997 for the United Kingdom with "Love Shine a Light". Reacting to the win, Leskanich said it was the second landslide victory in a week; the song won by a record points margin, and Tony Blair had won the 1997 British general election two days previously. The song won by a then-record margin of 70 points over the Irish runner-up. The song went to No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart (becoming the band's biggest-ever hit) and Katrina and The Waves performed an unprecedented four weeks running on the BBC One TV show Top of the Pops.

"Walking on Sunshine" continues to be one of the most popular songs from the 1980s with over 700 million streams on Spotify, and over 6 million monthly listeners.

Leskanich released a new single, 'Shut Your Mouth' on 21 April 2023.

In April 2024, Leskanich released a cover of Petula Clark's 'I Couldn't Live Without Your Love' written by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent which was Number One in the Heritage Chart in June. This was followed by a re-release of 'I Can't Give You Anything but Love' which reached Number 2 in the Heritage Chart in January 2025.

10/04/2025

Brian Setzer is 66 years old today.

Setzer is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He found widespread success in the early 1980s with the 1950s-style rockabilly group Stray Cats, and revitalized his career in the early 1990s with his swing revival band, the Brian Setzer Orchestra.

After performing in London for a few months, the Stray Cats met Dave Edmunds, a guitarist and record producer who shared their love of rockabilly and 1950s' rock and roll. Edmunds produced their debut album, Stray Cats (Arista, 1981), which yielded two hit singles, "Stray Cat Strut" and "Rock This Town".

The second album, Gonna Ball (Arista, 1982), was less successful. The band returned to America and released Built for Speed (EMI, 1982), produced again by Dave Edmunds, with songs collected from their first two albums. Helped by their music videos on MTV, the Stray Cats became popular in America. Their next album, Rant n' Rave with the Stray Cats (EMI, 1983) produced the hit "(She's) Sexy + 17". The Stray Cats disbanded in 1984.

Setzer began a solo career that included working as a sideman for other acts, such as the Honeydrippers led by Robert Plant.

Setzer returned to his love of music from the 1950s, this time the jump blues of Louis Prima. Whereas he had resurrected rockabilly in the 1980s, he resuscitated swing in the 1990s. He assembled the Brian Setzer Orchestra, a seventeen piece big band that got the public's attention with a cover version of Prima's "Jump, Jive an' Wail" from the album The Dirty Boogie (Interscope, 1998). The song won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, while "Sleep Walk" from the same album won the Grammy for Best Pop Instrumental Performance.

In February 2025, Setzer shared that he has an autoimmune disease which prevents him from playing guitar.

10/04/2025

Good Thursday Morning!

09/04/2025

The late Carl Perkins was born on this day in 1932.

Perkins was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. A rockabilly great and pioneer of rock and roll, he began his recording career at the Sun Studio, in Memphis, beginning in 1954. Among his best-known songs are "Blue Suede Shoes", "Honey Don't", "Matchbox" and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby".

In May 1964, Perkins toured Britain with Chuck Berry. Perkins had been reluctant to undertake the tour, convinced that as forgotten as he had become in America, he would be even more obscure in the U.K., and did not want to be humiliated by drawing meager audiences. Berry assured him that they had remained much more popular in Britain since the 1950s than they had in the United States, and that there would be large crowds of fans at every show. The popular young rock group The Animals backed the two performers. On the last night of the tour, Perkins attended a party where he sat on the floor sharing stories, playing guitar, and singing songs while surrounded by the Beatles. Ringo Starr asked if he could record "Honey Don't". Perkins answered, "Man, go ahead, have at it." The Beatles later recorded covers of "Matchbox", "Honey Don't" and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" (recorded by Perkins, adapted from a song originally recorded by Rex Griffin in 1936, with new music by Perkins; a song with the same title was recorded by Roy Newman in 1938). Ringo sang the lead on the first two, George Harrison received a rare lead on the third. The Beatles also recorded two versions of "Glad All Over" in 1963.

His last album, Go Cat Go!, released by the independent label Dinosaur Records in 1996, features Perkins singing duets with Bono, Johnny Cash, John Fogerty, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson, Tom Petty, Paul Simon, and Ringo Starr.

According to Charlie Daniels, "Carl Perkins' songs personified the rockabilly era, and Carl Perkins' sound personifies the rockabilly sound more so than anybody involved in it, because he never changed."Perkins' songs were recorded by artists (and friends) as influential as Elvis Presley, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Johnny Cash, which further established his place in the history of popular music. Paul McCartney claimed that "if there were no Carl Perkins, there would be no Beatles.

Nicknamed the "King of Rockabilly", Perkins was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, the Memphis Music Hall of Fame, and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. He also received a Grammy Hall of Fame Award.

Perkins died on January 19, 1998, at the age of 65 at Jackson-Madison County Hospital in Jackson, Tennessee, from complications from several minor strokes the previous month.

08/04/2025

Izzy Stradlin is 63 years old today.

The guitarist, singer and songwriter is best known as the co-founder and former lead guitarist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, which he left at the height of their fame in 1991, and with whom he recorded four studio albums.

Stradlin wrote or cowrote many of the bands hit songs including "Sweet Child o' Mine", "Paradise City" "Patience", "Don't Cry" and "You Could Be Mine".

He also performed lead vocals on "Dust N' Bones", "You Ain't the First", "Double Talkin' Jive", and "14 Years".

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Guns N' Roses in 2012.

In 2017, Stradlin played guitar on the song "Grandview" by John Mellencamp, on his album Sad Clowns & Hillbillies. Martina McBride was also featured on the song.

08/04/2025

Mel Schacher is 74 years old today.

Schacher is an American musician who is the bassist of the hard rock band Grand Funk Railroad.

The band achieved peak popularity and success during the 1970s with hit songs such as "We're an American Band", "I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)", "Some Kind of Wonderful" (a cover of Soul Brothers Six), "Walk Like a Man", "The Loco-Motion" (a cover of Little Eva), "Bad Time" and "Inside Looking Out" (a cover of the Animals). Grand Funk released six platinum and seven gold-certified albums between their recording debut in 1969 and their first disbandment in 1976.

Mark Farner, Don Brewer, and Schacher decided to give Grand Funk another try in 1980. However, Schacher had developed a distaste for flying and elected to stay behind.

Schacher spent the intervening years making his way as an investor and occasional musician until, almost by chance, he reteamed with Farner and Brewer in a reunited Grand Funk Railroad in 1996.

Schacher and Grand Funk Railroad continue to tour, and kicked off its "The American Band Tour 2019", "Celebrating 50 Years of Funk" tour on January 17, 2019.

08/04/2025

Happy 78th Birthday
STEVE HOWE
April 8, 1947
English Guitarist and Backing Vocalist

With a career spanning over five decades, Howe has left an indelible mark on the world of progressive rock.

*Early Career*
Howe's musical journey began at the age of 12, when he started learning the guitar. He joined his first band, the Syndicats, in 1964, playing covers and blues music. He later joined Tomorrow, a psychedelic rock band, and then Bodast, a progressive rock group.

*Yes Era*
In 1970, Howe joined Yes, a band that would become a defining part of his career. He played on several iconic albums, including "The Yes Album" (1970), "Fragile" (1971), and "Close to the Edge" (1972). Howe's unique guitar playing style and versatility helped shape Yes's sound.

*Asia Stint*
In 1981, Howe joined the supergroup Asia, alongside other notable musicians, including John Wetton, Geoff Downes, and Carl Palmer. With Asia, Howe released the album "Asia" (1982), which became a huge commercial success. He left the band in 1983, but his time with Asia remains a notable chapter in his career.

*Solo Work and Later Career*
Howe has released several solo albums, showcasing his diverse musical interests and guitar playing skills. Some notable solo albums include "Beginnings" (1975), "The Steve Howe Album" (1979), and "Time" (2011). He has also collaborated with other musicians and appeared as a guest artist on various albums.

*Legacy and Induction*
In 2017, Howe was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Yes, recognizing his contributions to the band and the world of progressive rock. Throughout his career, Howe has been praised for his innovative guitar playing and his ability to blend different musical styles.

08/04/2025

Leon Huff is 83 years old today.

Along with partner Kenneth Gamble, they were an American songwriting and production team credited for developing the Philadelphia soul music genre (also known as Philly sound) of the 1970s. In addition to forming their own label, Philadelphia International Records, Gamble and Huff have written and produced 175 gold and platinum records, earning them an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the non-performer category in March 2008.

Gamble and Huff formed Philadelphia International Records in 1971 as a rival to Berry Gordy and Motown. They originally approached Atlantic Records, which passed on the deal as being too expensive. CBS Records, headed at the time by Clive Davis, backed the venture and distributed Philadelphia International's records. Aided and abetted by in-house arrangers Thom Bell, Bobby Martin, and Norman Harris, Philadelphia International released a number of the most popular soul music hits of the 1970s, including "If You Don't Know Me by Now" by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, "Back Stabbers", "For the Love of Money", and "Love Train" by The O'Jays, as well as the Grammy-winning "Me and Mrs. Jones" by Billy Paul.

Nearly all of the Philadelphia International records featured the work of the label's in-house band of studio musicians, MFSB (Mother Father Sister Brother). MFSB cut a number of successful instrumental albums and singles written and produced by the Gamble & Huff team and arranged by Bobby Martin including the 1974 number-one hit "TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)", now best known as the theme song from the American television show Soul Train. Among the later hits were "Enjoy Yourself" by The Jacksons in 1976, and "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now" by McFadden & Whitehead in 1979.

08/04/2025

Good Tuesday Morning!

07/04/2025

Happy 74th Birthday to Janis Ian!
Born April 7, 1951

Today we celebrate the incredible Janis Ian—singer, songwriter, and poetic voice behind some of the most emotionally powerful songs of the ‘70s and beyond. From the haunting beauty of “At Seventeen” to the soulful “Society’s Child,” Janis has never been afraid to tell the truth through music.

Her lyrics spoke for the outsiders, the misunderstood, the dreamers—and they still resonate just as deeply today. With a career spanning decades, Janis Ian remains a fearless artist whose honesty and vulnerability have paved the way for generations of songwriters.

Wishing you a joyful birthday, Janis—thank you for your courage, your compassion, and your timeless music!

07/04/2025

John Oates is 77 years old today.

Oates is an American musician, best known as half of the rock and soul duo Hall & Oates, with Daryl Hall. He has played rock, R&B, and soul music, acting as a guitarist, singer, songwriter, and record producer.

Although Oates's main role in the duo is being the guitarist, he also co-wrote many of the top 10 songs that they recorded, including: "Sara Smile" (referring to Hall's then-girlfriend, Sara Allen), "She's Gone", and "Out of Touch", as well as "You Make My Dreams", "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)", "Maneater", and "Adult Education". He also sang lead vocals on several more singles in the Hot 100, such as "How Does It Feel to Be Back", "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" (a remake of the 1965 song performed by the Righteous Brothers), and "Possession Obsession". In 1986, Oates contributed the song "(She's the) Shape of Things to Come" on the soundtrack to the 1986 film About Last Night. He also co-wrote and sang backup on the song "Electric Blue", recorded by the Australian band Icehouse, which was a Billboard top 10 hit.

Hall and Oates have sold an estimated 80 million records, making them the third-bestselling music duo of all time.

Oates was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2004, and in 2014, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a member of Hall & Oates.

On September 2, 2016, they received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In November 2023, Daryl Hall sued Oates and filed a temporary restraining order against him, for initially undisclosed reasons. The following week, Hall filed a declaration accusing Oates of "the ultimate partnership betrayal" for planning to sell his share of the duo's publishing to Primary Wave Music. Oates responded that Hall's statements were "inflammatory, outlandish, and inaccurate".