January 2022
Birthday – NEIL DIAMOND (81)
Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter and actor. He has sold more than 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. On March 14, 2011, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at a ceremony at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.In December, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Kennedy Center at the 2011 Kennedy Center Honors. On August 10, 2012, Diamond…
Find out more »ROBBIE BURNS DAY
Scottish Canadians have embraced Robert Burns as a kind of patron poet and mark his birthday with festivities. 'Robbie Burns Day' is celebrated from Newfoundland to Nanaimo. A Burns supper is a celebration of the life and poetry of the poet Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), the author of many Scots poems. The suppers are normally held on or near the poet's birthday, 25 January, occasionally known as Robert Burns Day (or Rabbie Burns Day) but…
Find out more »Birthday – EDDIE VAN HALEN
Edward Lodewijk Van Halen (January 26, 1955 – October 6, 2020) was an American musician and songwriter. He was the main songwriter and guitarist of the American rock band Van Halen, which he co-founded in 1972 with his brother, drummer Alex Van Halen, bassist Mark Stone, and singer David Lee Roth. He is regarded as one of the all-time greatest guitar players in rock history and was well known for popularizing the tapping guitar solo technique, allowing rapid arpeggios to…
Find out more »Birthday – NICK MASON (78)
Nick Mason (born Jan 27, 1944) drums, percussion and tape effects for Pink Floyd. Nick is the only member of the band to play on every album since the band's formation in 1965.
Find out more »Birthday SARAH MCLACHLAN (54)
Was born on January 28, 1968, in Halifax. She was placed with the McLachlan family, who later legally adopted her. She played music from a very young age, beginning with the ukulele when she was four. She studied classical guitar, classical piano, and voice at the Maritime Conservatory of Music. At 17, while she was still a student at Queen Elizabeth High School, she fronted a short-lived rock band called The October Game. One of the band's songs, "Grind," credited…
Find out more »Birthday – PHIL COLLINS (71)
Philip David Charles Collins LVO (born 30 January 1951) is an English drummer, singer, songwriter, and record producer, best known as the drummer/singer of the rock band Genesis and for his solo career. Between 1982 and 1990, Collins scored three UK and seven US number-one singles in his solo career. When his work with Genesis, his work with other artists, as well as his solo career is totalled, he had more US Top 40 singles than any other artist during…
Find out more »February 2022
Birthday – ALICE COOPER (74)
Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948) is an American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spans over 50 years. With a raspy voice and a stage show that features numerous props, including pyrotechnics, guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, reptiles, baby dolls, and dueling swords, Cooper is considered by music journalists and peers to be "The Godfather of Shock Rock". He has drawn equally from horror films, vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a macabre and theatrical brand…
Find out more »Birthday – GORD DOWNIE
Gordon Edgar Downie CM (February 6, 1964 – October 17, 2017) was a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, musician, writer and activist. He was the lead singer and lyricist for the Canadian rock band The Tragically Hip, which he fronted from its formation in 1984 until his death in 2017. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential and popular artists in Canadian music history. Downie has released seven solo albums, two posthumously: Coke Machine Glow (2001), Battle of the…
Find out more »Birthday – CAROLE KING (80)
Carole King (born Carol Joan Klein; February 9, 1942) is an American singer-songwriter who has been active since 1958. She is the most successful female songwriter of the latter half of the 20th century in the US, having written or co-written 118 pop hits on the Billboard Hot 100. King also wrote 61 hits that charted in the UK, making her the most successful female songwriter on the UK singles charts between 1962 and 2005. King's major success began in…
Find out more »Birthday – DISCO (52)
Rarely does a dance movement fit so precisely within a decade. Seventies Disco was born on Valentine's Day 1970, when David Manusco opened The Loft in New York City, and it rapidly faded in 1980. When the Disco movement peaked in 1978-79, the demographic was predominantly white, heterosexual, urban and suburban middle class. But it didn't begin that way. For the first eight years, Disco was an underground movement. Then the film Saturday Night Fever (December 1977) helped turn the…
Find out more »