By Keefer
ON THIS DAY IN MUSIC HISTORY:
1956 - Elvis Presley s single, Heartbreak Hotel was released by RCA Records, who had just purchased Presley s contract from Sam Phillips and Sun Records for $35,000. Considering what Elvis would eventually do, that seems like a bad deal. But Sam took the money and invested in little known, Memphis based, Holiday Inn. He made out alright.
1971 - David Bowie arrived in the U.S. for the first time but was not allowed to play anywhere due to work permit restrictions. But it was a journey that broadened his universe and inspired his first great artistic statement. “The whole Hunky Dory album reflected my newfound enthusiasm for this new continent that had been opened up to me,” Bowie said in 1999. “That was the first time a real outside situation affected me so 100 percent that it changed my way of writing and the way I look at things.” It was also on this trip where he dreamed up his next career move: Ziggy Stardust.
My New Orleans
This article originally published as Laborde’s editor’s note in the January/February 2021 issue of Louisiana Life Magazine
Let us pause a moment to consider midnight trains:
Winston Hall is a Shreveport musician, song writer and music history buff. His town was once the home of the “Louisiana Hayride,” a Grand Ole Opry-type radio concert that helped grease many careers including that of Elvis and Hank Williams.
Williams lived in the Shreveport area for a while around 1948. His first house just so happened to be down the road a piece from where Hall would one day live. It is relevant to this story that a railroad track was across the street from the house.
ONLINE: Charlie Parr
Charlie Parr
Duluth, Minnesota, songwriter and guitarist Charlie Parr heads south for a residency at the beloved Minneapolis venue First Avenue every winter. In 2021 he will maintain the tradition, although potential audience members don t need to go any farther than a comfy chair; Parr will livestream from First Ave each Sunday in January, on YouTube and Facebook. Each week will feature secret special guests and likely new material from Parr s forthcoming 14th album, to be released via the legendary Smithsonian Folkways label later this year. Donations for the musicians are encouraged.
media release: Beloved songwriter and guitarist Charlie Parr has announced a series of 5 concerts each Sunday in January, streaming live from First Ave in Minneapolis. For the last 6 years Parrâs residency has been a beloved part of the Minneapolis music scene, often featuring surprise guests such as Alan Sparhawk of Low, Dave Simonett of Trampled by Turtles, Todd Albright
UPI Almanac for Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021
On Jan. 21, 2020, the U.S. CDC confirmed the United States first known case of novel coronavirus what would later come to be known as COVID-19.
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A woman wears a mask covering her mouth and nose while walking through the subway on January 27, 2020, in New York City, less than one week after the first reported case of coronavirus in the United States. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
John Mcenroe plays an exhibition doubles match at the opening of Wimbledon’s new No.1 court on May 19. On January 21, 1990, McEnroe became the first player to be disqualified from the Australian Open after an outburst in which he broke his racquet. File Photo by Hugo Philpott/UPI | License Photo
Blind Lemon Jefferson s grave in a small cemetery off Highway 14 north of
Wortham is a well-kept spot along the back fence honored with a metal state historic marker.
Often called the
Wortham Negro Cemetery is a mystery, as is most of his biography.
Jefferson was born blind in a sharecropper s cabin on Sept. 24, 1893, near
Coutchman, a settlement that no longer exists, west of Wortham. At a young age he began playing guitar and singing for coins on street corners and juke joints around
Mexia.
Deep Ellum neighborhood with the then-24-year-old
Huddie Leadbelly Ledbetter. Jefferson s favorite corner was at Elm Street and Central Avenue (now Central Expressway).