Born On This Day In Music: May 20th

1981
Sean Conlon, with English boy band Five who had the 1998 UK No.2 single ‘Everybody Get Up’ and the 1999 UK No.1 single ‘Keep On Movin’.

1981
American singer and songwriter Rachel Platten best known for her 2015 single ‘Fight Song’ which became a world-wide hit.

1972
American hip hop artist Busta Rhymes who had the 1998 UK No.2 single ‘Turn It Up / Fire It Up’, and the 2003 UK No.3 single with Mariah Carey ‘I Know What You Want’. Rhymes has received 11 Grammy Award nominations for his work.

1967
Kit Clark, from Scottish pop group Danny Wilson who had the 1988 UK No.3 single ‘Mary’s Prayer’.

Embed

Copy and paste this HTML code into your webpage to embed.

03:52

1964
Patti Russo, American singer/songwriter/actress. Best known as the female lead vocalist with Meat Loaf.

1963
Brian Nash, guitarist with Frankie Goes To Hollywood, the British band who formed in Liverpool and had the 1984 UK No.1 & US No.10 single ‘Relax’. The single eventually sold 2 million copies in the UK alone, making it the seventh best-selling single in the UK Singles Chart’s history. Their debut album, Welcome to the Pleasuredome, reached No.1 in the UK in 1984 with advanced sales of over one million.

Embed

Copy and paste this HTML code into your webpage to embed.

04:10

1961
Dan Wilson, American musician, singer, songwriter. He wrote ‘Closing Time’, for his band, Semisonic, ‘Not Ready to Make Nice’ (co-written with the Dixie Chicks) and ‘Someone like You’ (co-written with Adele). He earned a Grammy nomination for ‘Closing Time’ (Best Rock Song) and won Grammys for Song of the Year (‘Not Ready to Make Nice’ in 2007) and Album of the Year (which he won in 2012 as one of the producers of Adele’s 21).

1961
Nick Heyward, guitar, vocals, Haircut 100. The band had four UK Top 10 hit singles between 1981 and 1982, including ‘Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)’, ‘Love Plus One’ and ‘Fantastic Day’. Now a solo artist.

Embed

Copy and paste this HTML code into your webpage to embed.

03:24

1959
Sue Cowsill, from American singing group The Cowsills, who had the 1967 US No.2 single ‘The Rain, The Park & Other Things’, and the 1969 US No.2 single the theme from ‘Hair’. TV’s Partridge Family was based on The Cowsills family.

1959
Iz or IZ, a Native Hawaiian singer-songwriter, musician. His 1993 medley of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow – What a Wonderful World’ was featured in several films, television programs, and television commercials. He died on 26 June 1997.

1958
Jane Wieldin, guitar, vocals, from all-female American rock band The Go-Go’s, who had the 1982 US No.2 single, ‘We Got The Beat’, and the 1982 UK hit single ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’. Their 1981 debut album, Beauty and the Beat, is considered one of the “cornerstone albums of US new wave music”. Wieldin had the 1988 solo UK No.12 single ‘Rush Hour’.

1955
Steve George, Keyboardist from American pop rock band Mr Mister who scored the 1985 US No.1 & 1986 UK No.4 single ‘Broken Wings’.

Embed

Copy and paste this HTML code into your webpage to embed.

04:49

1954
American guitarist Jimmy Henderson for American Southern rock band Black Oak Arkansas. The band reached the height of its fame in the 1970s and scored a hit with LaVern Baker’s 1957 ‘Jim Dandy (To The Rescue)’, which reached No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100. He died on March 5, 2016, aged 61.

1952
Warren Cann, drummer, with British new wave band Ultravox who had the 1981 UK No.2 single ‘Vienna’, plus 15 other UK Top 40 singles.

Embed

Copy and paste this HTML code into your webpage to embed.

04:58

1946
Cherilyn Sarkasian, (Cher), American singer and actress, one-half of the folk rock husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher who had the 1965 UK & US No.1 single ‘I Got You Babe‘. She became a television personality in the 1970s with her shows The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, watched by over 30 million viewers weekly during its three-year run. Solo hits include the 1991 UK No.1 single ‘The Shoop Shoop Song’, 1998 UK No.1 & 1999 US No.1 single ‘Believe’, plus over 15 other UK Top 40 singles.

Embed

Copy and paste this HTML code into your webpage to embed.

03:41

1944
Joe Cocker, English singer and musician who had the 1968 UK No.1 single with his cover of The Beatles ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’, plus 8 other UK Top 40 singles. Scored the 1982 US No.1 single with Jennifer Warnes ‘Up Where We Belong’. In 2007 he was awarded a bronze Sheffield Legends plaque in his hometown and in 2008 he received an OBE at Buckingham Palace for services to music. Cocker died of lung cancer on 22 December 2014 in Crawford, Colorado.

1942
Jill Jackson, from American pop singing duo Paul and Paula, who had the 1963 US No.1 & UK No.8 single, ‘Hey Paula’.

1940
American soul singer Shorty Long. He had the 1968 US No. 8 single ‘Here Comes The Judge’ and acted as an MC for many of the Motown Revue tours. Long was the only Motown artist besides Smokey Robinson who was allowed to produce his own recordings in the 1960s. He died age 29 on June 29, 1969 after his boat capsized on the Detroit River in Michigan.
Share

Views: 1