FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), sometimes simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on the shore of Lake Erie. The museum documents the history of rock music and the artists, producers, engineers, and other notable figures and personnel who have influenced its development.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation was established on April 20, 1983, by Ahmet Ertegun, founder and chairman of Atlantic Records. After a long search for the right city, Cleveland was chosen in 1986 as the Hall of Fame’s permanent home. Architect I. M. Pei designed the new museum, and it was dedicated on September 1, 1995.
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer whose career spans over five decades. With a raspy voice and a stage show that features numerous props and stage illusions, including pyrotechnics, guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, reptiles, baby dolls, and dueling swords, Cooper is considered by many 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 of rock designed to shock audiences.
Originating in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1964, “Alice Cooper” was originally a band with roots extending back to a band called the Earwigs, consisting of Furnier on lead vocals and harmonica, Glen Buxton on lead guitar, and Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar and backing vocals. By 1966, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar joined the three and Neal Smith was added on drums in 1967. The five named the band “Alice Cooper”, and Furnier eventually adopted it as his stage pseudonym. They released their 1969 debut studio album with limited chart success. Breaking out with the 1970 single “I’m Eighteen” and the third studio album Love It to Death, the band reached their commercial peak in 1973 with their sixth studio album, Billion Dollar Babies. After the band broke up, Furnier legally changed his name to Alice Cooper and began a solo career in 1975 with the concept album Welcome to My Nightmare. Over his career, Cooper has sold well over 50 million records.
Cooper has experimented with a number of musical styles, mainly hard rock, glam rock, heavy metal, and glam metal, but also new wave (1980–1983), art rock on DaDa (1983), and industrial rock on Brutal Planet (2000) and Dragontown (2001). He helped to shape the sound and look of heavy metal, and has been described as the artist who “first introduced horror imagery to rock’n’roll, and whose stagecraft and showmanship have permanently transformed the genre”. He is also known for his wit offstage, with The Rolling Stone Album Guide calling him the world’s most “beloved heavy metal entertainer”. Away from music, Cooper is a film actor, a golfing celebrity, a restaurateur, and, since 2004, a radio disc jockey (DJ) with his classic rock show Nights with Alice Cooper.
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Neil Leslie Diamond (born January 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. He has sold more than 130 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has had ten No. 1 singles on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 and Adult Contemporary charts: “Cracklin’ Rosie“, “Song Sung Blue“, “Longfellow Serenade“, “I’ve Been This Way Before“, “If You Know What I Mean“, “Desirée“, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers“, “America“, “Yesterday’s Songs“, and “Heartlight“. Thirty-eight songs by Diamond have reached the top 10 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary charts, including “Sweet Caroline“. He has also acted in films, making his screen debut in the 1980 musical drama film The Jazz Singer.
Diamond was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984 and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011, and he received the Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. In 2011, he was an honoree at the Kennedy Center Honors, and he received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Question of the Day
I have a cereus cactus that has never bloomed. It just keeps sending out shoots, getting long and leggy. How can I make it bloom?
Cereus cacti have spectacular, fragrant blossoms, but they aren’t known for blooming very often. We don’t think the legginess has anything to do with your plant’s inability to bloom, but perhaps you can trim some of the excess growth back and root the cuttings. To get your cactus to bloom annually, give it a mixture of equal parts water and 20-20-20 fertilizer monthly during the spring and summer. Don’t feed it at all during the fall and winter, and let the plant go a bit dry between waterings. Since this plant prefers to be root-bound, don’t repot it too often.
Advice of the Day
Bleach a pastry board or rolling pin with an occasional rubbing of fresh lemon.
Home Hint of the Day
Once an old metal file has grown too dull for further use, use an electric grinding wheel to grind down the end and make it into a chisel. You can make a handle out of a 6-inch length of broomstick.
Word of the Day
Sun Fast/Slow
When a sundial reading is behind (slow) or ahead of (fast) clock time.
Puzzle of the Day
What is lengthened by being cut at both ends?
A ditch
Born
- Johann Strauss, the Elder (composer) – 1804
- Lucy Hobbs Taylor (first U.S. woman dentist) – 1833
- John Luther “Casey” Jones (railroad engineer) – 1864
- Albert Einstein (physicist) – 1879
- Lester Brown (bandleader) – 1912
- Max Shulman (novelist) – 1919
- Hank Ketcham (cartoonist, creator of Dennis the Menace) – 1920
- Frank Borman (astronaut) – 1928
- Michael Caine (actor) – 1933
- Quincy Jones (musician) – 1933
- Billy Crystal (actor) – 1948
- Kirby Puckett (baseball player) – 1961
- Steph Curry (basketball player) – 1988
- Simone Biles (Olympic gymnast) – 1997
Died
- Emile Erckmann (novelist) – 1899
- Henry Woods (federal judge) – 2002
- Thomas Winship (editor of the Boston Globe from 1965-1984, Pulitzer Prize winner) – 2002
- Peter Graves (actor) – 2010
- Stephen Hawking (physicist) – 2018
Events
- Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin– 1794
- U.S. Congress adopted the gold standard– 1900
- Pelican Island (Fla.) became first National Wildlife Refuge in the United States – 1903
- Women granted the right to vote in Saskatchewan– 1916
- Germany began retreat to Hindenburg Line (WWI)– 1917
- First U.S. concrete seagoing ship, S.S. Faith, launched, Redwood City, California– 1918
- U.S. President Warren G. Harding became the first chief executive to file an income tax report– 1923
- Shirley Temple left her footprints and handprints in the wet cement at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood– 1935
- The U.S. Army Air Corp began bombing Osaka, Japan (WWII)– 1945
- Possible UFO sighted in Healdsburg, California– 1958
- Gordie Howe second player in NHL history to score 500 career goals– 1962
- Jack Ruby was found guilty in Dallas of the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald, accused assassin of U.S. President John F. Kennedy– 1964
- Batman, starring Adam West and Burt Ward, aired its last episode– 1968
- OPEC agreed to lower the benchmark price for crude oil by 15%. It marked the first price cut since the group’s formation in 1960– 1983
- Marc Garneau chosen as first Canadian astronaut to go into space– 1984
- Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge founded in Manteo, North Carolina– 1984
- Lebanese hijacker, Fawaz Younis, brought to U.S. to stand trial, found guilty of air piracy in 1985 hijacking– 1989
- The Soviet Congress elected Mikhail Gorbachev to the country’s presidency, one day after clearing the post– 1990
- Alice Cooper, Neil Diamond, Dr. John, Darlene Love, Tom Waits, Jac Holzman, Art Rupe, and Leon Russell were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame– 2011
Weather
- Red snow and hail fell in parts of Italy and present-day Slovenia– 1813
- A tornado swept through Nashville, Tennessee– 1933
- At the end of a four-day storm, a record for the state of Iowa was set in Iowa City, 27.2 inches of snowfall– 1951
COURTESY www.almanac.com
