People, Locations, Episodes

Wilson Pickett, Soul Singer born

*Wilson Pickett was born on this date in 1941. He was a Black singer.

Pickett was born in Prattville, Alabama, the youngest of 11 children. He once called his mother “the baddest woman in my book, she used to hit me with anything, skillets, stove wood, one time I ran away and cried for a week.” Pickett grew up singing in Baptist church choirs and eventually left to live with his father in Detroit. He began his musical career with The Falcons in the early 1959. Five years later he signed as a solo artist with Atlantic Records and recorded “In the Midnight Hour” (1965).

Adolphus Hailstork, Composer and Educator born

*Adolphus Hailstork was born on April 17, 1941. He is a Black composer and educator. Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork III was born in Rochester, New York, and grew up in Albany, New York, where he studied violin, piano, organ, and voice. He is of African, Indigenous, and European ancestry. His works blend musical ideas from the […]

Shirley Witherspoon, Vocalist born

This date celebrates the birth of Shirley Witherspoon in 1941. She was an African American singer.

Nick Ashford, Lyricist, and Singer born

*Nick Ashford was born on this date in 1941. He was an African American songwriting/production and recording artist.

Bob Dylan, Singer, Composer, and Artistic Activist born

*Bob Dylan was born on this date in 1941. He is a white Jewish-American folk music singer, composer, artist, and activist. He was born Robert Allen Zimmerman in St. Mary’s Hospital in Duluth, Minnesota, and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Range west of Lake Superior. Dylan’s paternal grandparents, Anna Kirghiz and Zigman Zimmerman, emigrated from […]

Chick Corea, Jazz Keyboardist born

*Chick Corea was born on this date in 1941. He was a white-Italian-American jazz composer, keyboardist, bandleader, and occasional percussionist.   Armando Anthony Corea was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts, to parents Armando J. Correa and Anna Corea. He was of southern Italian descent, and his father was born to an immigrant from Catanzaro, Calabria. His […]

Martha Reeves, Motown Singer born

Martha Reeves was born on this date in 1941. She is an African American singer, was a city council member, and the lead singer of Martha & the Vandellas.

Born in Eufaula, Alabama, Martha Rose Reeves is the eldest of 11 children born to Elijah Joshua and Ruby Lee Gilmore Reeves. The Reeves family moved to Detroit right after she was born. She was brought up in the church, since her grandfather was a minister at Detroit’s Metropolitan Church. She went to Northeastern High School, where she was vocally coached by Abraham Silver.

George Clinton, Singer, Lyricist, and Bandleader born

*George Clinton was born on this date in 1941. He is a Black singer, songwriter, bandleader, and record producer. George Edward Clinton was born in Kannapolis, North Carolina, and grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey. During his teenage years, Clinton formed a doo-wop group called The Parliaments while working as a hair stylist at a […]

Cesária Évora, Black Portuguese Diva born

*Cesária Évora was born on this date in1941. She was a Black Portuguese singer and entertainer.

Otis Redding, Soul Singer born

On this date in 1941, Otis Redding was born. He was an African American singer and entertainer.

He was born in Dawson, GA. He began playing drums in school and was paid six dollars a hour on Sundays to accompany gospel groups appearing on local radio station WIBB. He stayed in school until the tenth grade, quitting to help support his family. Redding began his recording career in the early 1960s as a Little Richard-styled shouter. He was working in the band of guitarist Johnny Jenkins at the time, and in 1962, he recorded the ballad These Arms of Mine.

Lester Bowie, Avant-Garde Jazz Musician born

Lester Bowie was born on this date in 1941. He was an African American trumpeter, flugelhornist, and percussionist.

A native of Frederick, MD, Bowie was reared in Little Rock, AR, and St. Louis, and began playing at age 5. He was leading a teen combo in St. Louis at the age of 16. He then went into military service, returning to work with R&B groups and in support of his wife, Fontella Bass.

Bowie worked in the backup bands for R&B sessions for the Chess label and was instrumental in the formation of the Black Artists Group in St. Louis before moving to Chicago in 1966.

Clarence Clemons, Musician born

*Clarence Clemons was born on this date in 1942. He was an African American musician.

Clarence Anicholas Clemons was from Norfolk, VA. His father owned a fish market and his grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher, and although he grew up surrounded by gospel music, the young Clemons was captivated by rock ’n’ roll. He was given an alto saxophone at age 9 as a Christmas gift; later, following the influence of King Curtis whose many credits include the jaunty sax part on the Coasters’ 1958 hit “Yakety Yak” he switched to the tenor.

Edwin Starr, Soul Singer born

*Edwin Starr was born on this date in 1942. He was an African American musician and entertainer.

Born Charles Hatcher in Nashville, Tennessee, his cousin was deep soul singer and songwriter Roger Hatcher. He moved from Nashville as a child to Cleveland where as a teen stated his own vocal group the Future Tones. In 1960, he went into the Armed forces where he entertained troops around Europe. In 1962, after completing military service he moved to Detroit, Michigan.

Amina Claudine Myers, Musician and Composer Born.

*Amina Claudine Myers was born on this date in 1942. She is a Black jazz pianist, organist, vocalist, composer, and arranger. Born in Blackwell, Arkansas, Myers was brought up mainly by her great-aunt, a schoolteacher, and her great-uncle, a carpenter by trade who played the clarinet, piano, and flute. She took piano lessons around the age of […]

Aretha Franklin, Singer, and Pianist born

*Aretha Franklin was born on this date in 1942. She is one of the most accomplished and influential vocalists of the last two centuries.