See if you can follow this….. When Aynsley Dunbar left John Mayall and The Bluesbreakers to form Faces with Jeff Beck and a young singer named Rod Stewart, guitarist Eric Clapton suggested drummer Mick Fleetwood as a replacement. Clapton then asked Peter Green to fill in for him for a few gigs with The Bluesbreakers. …
After making his Broadway debut in The Wiz, Ken Page took the featured role of “Nicely-Nicely” in a Broadway revival of the Damon Runyon musical Guys and Dolls. He followed that up with a turn in Ain’t Misbehavin’, the acclaimed musical biography of jazz pianist Fats Waller. Ken reprised the role in a television broadcast …
I remember watching baseball with my mom and dad, both pretty avid baseball fans. It was a Philadelphia Phillies game and they were playing the Cincinnati Reds, who, at the time, were the powerhouse known as “The Big Red Machine.” When Pete Rose stepped up to the plate for the Reds, my mom — never …
You’ve heard of Cathy Smith…. right? Sure you have. Maybe just not her name. Cathy sang backup for The Hawks, an up-and-coming Canadian band. Though just 16 years-old, she fell for Hawks’ 23 year-old drummer Levon Helm, but still was pretty close with all of the band members. They eventually changed their name to The …
Entering show business as a child using a doctored birth certificate, Mary Miles Minter fit the mold of perceived innocence. With blonde curls and soulful eyes, she was groomed by studio heads to rival — and hopefully replace — Mary Pickford. In spite of her youth, Mary had nearly 30 films to her credit when …
As a teen singing in a central New Jersey church choir, Roy Hamilton had aspirations of becoming a professional singer. In 1947, the seventeen-year-old won a talent contest held at the legendary Apollo Theater. However, as Roy lamented, he couldn’t get a break. “There were plenty of opportunities for blues singers,” he recalled, “but I …
Two things I learned about Bettie Page. In her later years, she refused to be photographed, hoping to preserve the magical appeal of her youthful good looks in the minds of her scores of fans. Bettie Page is hard to draw. Sure, she’s been artistically portrayed by countless artists all over the world, paying homage …
Juan Kachmanian was born in Argentina in 1930. His father was a boxing promoter and the family moved all over the world. Juan, a stocky, muscular fellow, entered the world of professional wrestling under the tutelage of trainer Rudy Dusek. Wresting under various ring names — Ervan the Armenian, Ivan the Terrible, The Missing Link …
While still a student at the University of Pennsylvania, Bobby Troup wrote “Daddy” for a production staged by the school’s Mask & Wig Club, a campus theatre group. It was recorded by Sammy Kaye and his Orchestra. The recording was a hit and it stayed at Number One on the Billboard charts for eight weeks …
22 year-old Vesna Vulović, a flight attendant for Yugoslavia’s JAT Airlines, reported for work on January 25, 1972. When she arrived, she was told that she wasn’t even on the schedule and that she was confused with another flight attendant named Vesna. Nevertheless, Vesna was anxious to travel to Denmark and she took the shift …
