"Hey Jude" on This Day in History

 

This day in history: "Hey Jude" was released for sale in the United States on this day in 1968. "Hey Jude" was the best-selling single ever recorded by The Beatles (as well as the most popular single of 1968 in the U.S. and the UK, and half a century later, still the 10th best-seller worldwide of all recorded songs), and it was the first Beatles release for their new company, Apple Records.

The best-selling song of all time is Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and the best-selling rock song is "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and the Comets. 

This Kindle book, The Dark History of Christmas, is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and it is only $1.99 and The Strange History of Easter and the Christian Cross is on Amazon for only $1.99 

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Trance Musician Robert Miles on This Day in History

 

Children

This Day in History: Italian record producer, composer, musician and DJ Roberto Concina, known professionally as Robert Miles, died on this day in 2017 at the young age of 47. 

Miles is best known for his Dream Trance hit "Children" which sold more than 5 million copies and topped the charts worldwide. Dream Trance is an early subgenre of trance music that peaked prominently on the international dance scene between 1995 and 1998. 

The creation of dream trance was a response to social pressures in Italy during the early 1990s; the growth of rave culture among young adults, and the ensuing popularity of nightclub attendance, had created a weekly trend of deaths due to car accidents as clubbers drove across the country overnight, falling asleep at the wheel from strenuous dancing as well as alcohol and drug use. In mid-1996, deaths due to this phenomenon, called strage del sabato sera ("Saturday night slaughter") in Italy, were being estimated at around 2000 since the start of the 1990s. "Children" by Robert Miles is one of the pioneering tracks of the genre and was created due to these accidents. The move by DJs such as Miles to play slower, calming music to conclude a night's set, as a means to counteract the fast-paced, repetitive tracks that preceded, was met with approval by authorities and parents of car crash victims.

Miles also had 2 other great hits with Fable and One and One.

Karen Carpenter on This Day in History

This day in history: American singer and drummer Karen Carpenter was born on this day in 1950. Karen and her brother Richard formed The Carpenters, a successful pop/soft-rock duo. Karen had a distinctive three-octave contralto vocal range, and was praised by her peers as one of the greatest singers ever. Her singing had attracted critical praise and influenced several significant musicians and singers, including Madonna, Sheryl Crow, Pat Metheny, Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon, Shania Twain, Natalie Imbruglia, and k.d. lang. Paul McCartney has said that she had "the best female voice in the world: melodic, tuneful and distinctive". She has been called "one of the greatest voices of our lifetime" by Elton John. In the BBC documentary Only Yesterday: The Carpenters Story, her friend Nicky Chinn said that John Lennon walked up to her at a Los Angeles restaurant and told her "I want to tell you love, that you've got a fabulous voice." Her drumming has been praised by fellow musicians Hal Blaine, Cubby O'Brien and Buddy Rich and by Modern Drummer magazine. In 1975, she was voted the best rock drummer in a poll of Playboy readers, beating Led Zeppelin's John Bonham.

The manner of her death though garnered as much attention as her musical career. Karen began different types of diets as far back as high school. Carpenter eventually began her own weight-loss program using exercise equipment and counting calories. She lost about 20 pounds in the mid-70's and intended to lose another five pounds. Her eating habits also changed around this time; she would try to remove food from her plate by offering tastes to others with whom she was dining. By September 1975, Carpenter weighed 91 pounds. At live performances, fans reacted with gasps to her gaunt appearance, and many wrote to the pair to ask what was wrong.

She eventually died on February 4 1983 of "emetine cardiotoxicity due to or as a consequence of anorexia nervosa." Carpenter's death brought media attention to anorexia nervosa, a condition that had not been widely known beforehand. Her family started the Karen A. Carpenter Memorial Foundation, which raised money for research on anorexia nervosa and other eating disorders.

On October 12, 1983, shortly after her death, the Carpenters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 1999, VH1 ranked Carpenter at No. 29 on its list of the 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll. In 2010, Rolling Stone ranked Carpenter No. 94 on its list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time, calling her voice "impossibly lush and almost shockingly intimate", adding "even the sappiest songs sound like she was staring directly into your eyes".

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