Born On This Day In Music, May 21st

1985
Mutya Buena, singer with British girl group Sugababes who had the 2002 UK No.1 single, ‘Round Round’. In 2006, British Hit Singles & Albums named the Sugababes as the most successful female act of the 21st century with six UK No.1 singles and eighteen UK top ten hits.

1980
Belgian born, Australian multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Wouter De Backer, known professionally as Gotye. His 2012 single ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ topped charts in the US, UK, Australia, as well as 23 other national charts.

1978
Adam Wade Gontier, lead singer and guitarist from Canadian rock band Three Days Grace. The band has a string of No.1 songs on the Billboard Alternative Songs Chart.

1975
Lee Gaze, guitarist, from Welsh rock band Lostprophets, who scored the 2006 UK No.1 album Liberation Transmission.

1972
American rapper The Notorious B.I.G. (aka Biggie Smalls, aka Christopher G. Wallace). He scored the 1997 US No.1 single ‘Hypnotize’. He was gunned down on the streets of Los Angeles on 9th March 1997 aged 24. Three more albums have been released since his death and he has sold over 17 million records in the United States.

1964
Martin Blunt, bassist with English indie rock band The Charlatans who had the 1990 UK No.9 single ‘The Only One I Know’. In the UK, all of the band’s thirteen studio albums have charted in the Top 40 of the UK Albums Chart, three of them being No.1s.

1963
Tim Lever, from English pop band, Dead Or Alive, who scored the 1985 UK No.1 single ‘You Spin Me Round, Like A Record’.

1955
Stan Lynch, American musician, songwriter and record producer who was the original drummer for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, (1977 single ‘American Girl’, 1989 UK No.28 single ‘I Won’t Back Down’, 1991 UK No.3 album ‘Into The Great Wide Open’). He partnered with longtime friend Don Henley to help put together Eagles’ reunion album Hell Freezes Over and as a producer and writer, Lynch has worked with a diverse array of acts, such as The Band, Eagles, Don Henley, Jackopierce, Joe 90, Scotty Moore, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, The Jeff Healey Band, Tim McGraw and Ringo Starr.

1948
British born singer-songwriter Leo Sayer who had the 1977 UK & US No.1 single ‘When I Need You’, the Chrysalis record label their first UK No.1. Sayer also co-wrote ‘Giving It All Away’, which gave Roger Daltrey of The Who his first solo hit in 1973.

1947
American singer, guitarist, keyboard player and songwriter Bill Champlin who joined Chicago in 1981. He sang (with Peter Cetera) on the bands 1984 hit single ‘Hard Habit to Break’.

1943
Hilton Valentine, English musician, who was the original guitarist in The Animals who had the 1964 UK & US No.1 single ‘House Of The Rising Sun’. He died on 29 January 2021 at the age of 77.

1943
John Dalton, bass guitar player, best known as a member of The Kinks from 1966 & 1969 to 1976 and played on the 1967 UK No.2 single ‘Waterloo Sunset’.

1943
Vincent Crane, English keyboardist who was best known as the organist for The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster. The Crazy world of Arthur Brown scored the 1968 UK No.1 and US No.12 single ‘Fire’, and Atomic Rooster, the 1971 UK No.4 single ‘The Devil’s Answer’. He died on 14th February 1989 from a deliberate overdose of Anadin tablets in at age 45.

1941
Ronald Isley, from American group The Isley Brothers who first came to prominence in 1959 with their fourth single, ‘Shout’, and then the 1962 hit ‘Twist and Shout. The Isley Brothers also scored the hits ‘This Old Heart Of Mine’, ‘Summer Breeze’ and ‘Harvest for the World’. Sixteen of their albums charted in the Top 40.

1940
English rock and roll singer-songwriter and guitarist Tony Sheridan. He was best known as an early collaborator of The Beatles and the only non-Beatle to appear as lead singer on a Beatles recording (‘My Bonnie’) which charted as a single. Sheridan died on 16 February 2013.

1934
American guitarist Sonny Forriest who was a member of The Coasters. The American rhythm and blues/rock and roll vocal group scored the 1958 US No.1 single ‘Yakety Yak’, the 1959 US No.2 and UK No.6 single ‘Charlie Brown’, as well as ‘Young Blood’ and ‘Poison Ivy’. Forriest died on Jan 10th 1999.

https://youtu.be/e-Exe4YUJyI

1904
Fats Waller, American jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer and comedic entertainer. His best-known compositions, ‘Ain’t Misbehavin” and ‘Honeysuckle Rose’, were inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1984 and 1999. In 1926 Waller was kidnapped at gunpoint in Chicago and driven to a club owned by gangster Al Capone. Inside the club he was ordered to perform at what turned out to be a surprise birthday party for the gangster. Waller died 15 December 1943.

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