Pick a Day

Music History Events: Births

October 25, 1912 Country comedian and Hee Haw regular Minnie Pearl is born Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon in Centerville, Hickman County, Tennessee.

September 5, 1912 Experimental composer John Cage is born in Los Angeles, California. Known for his composition "4'33," in which musicians were present but did not play their instruments. Instead, environmental sounds provided the music for the piece.

August 23, 1912 Song-and-dance man Gene Kelly is born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

July 5, 1912 Prolific songwriter Mack David, known for his work on Disney films such as Cinderella and Alice In Wonderland, is born in New York City. His younger brother is songwriter Hal David, known for his collaborations with Burt Bacharach.

May 18, 1912 Perry Como is born Pierino Ronald Como in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. One of the most popular crooners of the 1940s and 1950s, he also starred in a number of movies and made many TV appearances.

May 13, 1912 Jazz musician Gil Evans is born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

April 2, 1912 Jazz singer Herbert Mills (of The Mills Brothers) is born in Piqua, Ohio.

March 24, 1912 Novelty singer Nervous Norvus (Jim Drake) is born in Memphis. He has a hit with "Transfusion" in 1956.

March 15, 1912 Country blues singer/songwriter Lightnin' Hopkins is born in Centerville, Texas.

March 14, 1912 Les Brown, known for his Band of Renown during the big-band era, is born in Reinerton, Pennsylvania.

February 2, 1912 Burton Lane, known for composing the music for the Broadway productions of Finian's Rainbow (1947) and On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (1965), is born Morris Hyman Kushner in New York City.

December 15, 1911 Jazz pianist/composer Stan Kenton is born in Wichita, Kansas.

December 14, 1911 Spike Jones is born Lindley Armstrong Jones in Long Beach, California. He allegedly earns his nickname for being so thin, like a railroad spike.

November 12, 1911 Trumpet player Buck Clayton is born in Kansas.

November 5, 1911 Cowboy singer and film star Roy Rogers is born Leonard Franklin Slye in Cincinnati, Ohio.

October 26, 1911 Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson is born in New Orleans, Louisiana.

October 24, 1911 Bluesman Sonny Terry is born Saunders Terrell in Greensboro, Georgia. Terry begins focusing on music when an injury to his eyes leaves him blind at age 16.

October 19, 1911 George Cates, known as the music director for the long-running Lawrence Welk Show, is born in New York City.

October 7, 1911 Vaughn Monroe, big band leader, singer, and actor, is born in Akron, Ohio. His signature song was "Racing With the Moon"

October 7, 1911 Jazz drummer "Papa" Jo Jones is born Jonathan David Samuel Jones in Chicago, Illinois. He was a member of Count Basie's Orchestra from 1934-1948.

September 13, 1911 Bluegrass pioneer Bill Monroe is born near Rosine, Kentucky, becoming the youngest of eight children in the Monroe family.

July 31, 1911 George Liberace, violinist and elder brother to the mononymous entertainer Liberace, is born in Menasha, Wisconsin.

July 16, 1911 Ginger Rogers is born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri. She begins her partnership with Fred Astaire in the 1933 RKO musical Flying Down to Rio.

July 7, 1911 Composer Gian Carlo Menotti, known for the popular Christmas opera Amahl and the Night Visitors, is born in Cadegliano-Viconago, Italy.

July 4, 1911 Mitch Miller, an influential A&R executive at Columbia Records throughout the '50s and '60s, is born in Rochester, New York. Signed Aretha Franklin to her first record deal.

June 29, 1911 Bernard Herrmann, a film composer who often collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock, is born Max Herman in New York City.

May 18, 1911 Bluesman Big Joe Turner is born Joseph Vernon Turner Jr in Kansas City, Missouri.

May 13, 1911 Jazz singer Maxine Sullivan, known for her 1937 swing version of the Scottish folk song "Loch Lomond," is born Marietta Williams in Homestead, Pennsylvania.

May 8, 1911 Blues musician Robert Johnson is born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi.

April 10, 1911 Pianist Martin Denny is born in New York City.