With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

Music reviews, gig reviews, fun trivia and extra added random stuff!

On This Day The Dame Was Born, The King Was Born And A Real Dame Was Born! January 8, 2024

Filed under: On This Day — justwilliam1959 @ 12:00 am
Tags: , ,

David Bowie, whom the NME cheekily used to refer to as the Dame was born on January 8th, 1947. He would have turned 77 today. Many people know that Elvis Presley was born 12 years before him on the same date in 1935. But did you know that a real Dame was also born on January 8th, but in 1937? Yes, it was Dame Shirley Bassey. On the former David Jones’s 19th birthday in 1966, he played a show at the Marquee Club in London with his band the Lower Third. On January 8th, 1970 Bowie began recording the original single of “The Prettiest Star” with Marc Bolan on guitar. On Bowie’s 66th Birthday Bowie made a spectacular and unexpected comeback by releasing “Where Are We Now” with no advance warning. It is one of his most reflective songs and the lyrics work through his time living in Berlin. He surprised the world again on his 69th birthday by releasing the stunning ‘Blackstar’, sadly he passed away two days later. Incidentally, that album, his 26th studio record, was the first not to feature Bowie on the cover.

This is David Bowie at his daughter’s birthday party

If you have enjoyed this article, feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, EMail. Are you interested in writing and reviewing for With Just A Hint Of Mayhem? If so then please get in touch.

 

On This Day There Were Two Virgins An Audition And A Producer! January 3, 2024

Filed under: On This Day — justwilliam1959 @ 8:32 am
Tags: , , , , , ,

The original post had the album cover, but it was against Facebook’s community standards, so I have updated it!

When I started this blog nearly fifteen years ago the early posts were largely music trivia, often “on this day” related. Then I went on to focus more on reviews. So as a treat and inspired by receiving Justin Lewis‘ excellent almanac ‘Don’t Stop The Music – A Year Of Pop History One Day At A Time‘ as a Christmas present from my fabulous wife Catwoman (a.k.a. Catherine) I plan to add in quite a few on this day style posts in 2024. The first few will be from that book, but not all will. I will kick off with a bonus of three, one for 1st January, one for 2nd January, and another for today (3rd January). All three are Beatles-related, just “Because…” The first of these facts is that acclaimed music producer and the man often referred to as the fifth Beatle, George Martin was born on 3rd January 1926.

On 2nd January 1968, The entire shipment of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s album ‘Two Virgins’ was seized by authorities in New Jersey due to the controversial full-frontal nude photograph of the pair on the cover. The album was eventually wrapped in plain brown paper in record stores. The album is a venture into the avant-garde side of music by Lennon, which is interesting because he once declared that the phrase avant-garde was “French for shit”

On 1st January 1961 the Fabs recorded some songs as a demo for Decca Records and were turned down in favour of Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. Five of those songs were eventually released officially on ‘Anthology Volume 1’ in 1995. The songs included there were “Searchin'”, “Three Cool Cats”, “The Sheik Of Araby”, “Like Dreamers Do” and “Hello Little Girl”.

If you have enjoyed this article, feel free to follow the blog, or follow us on; Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, EMail. Are you interested in writing and reviewing for With Just A Hint Of Mayhem? If so then please get in touch.