Much respect to the well-loved Donny Hathaway, the great gospel-inspired singer and songwriter, as well as pianist, producer and arranger. His music covered soul, gospel, pop, blues, jazz, Christmas songs, ballads, funk and even Latin, in a nice mix of both originals and covers. Born in Chicago to a gospel-singing family, he grew up in St. Louis. He started singing in church at age 3 and was playing piano young as well. He studied music at Howard University, where he also played in a jazz trio with Ric Powell and rolled with Roberta Flack and Leroy Hutson. He started working as...

One of my favorite '60s rock singers, Dutch gypsy vocalist Mariska Veres had a powerful presence as front woman for the arty psych band Shocking Blue, one of the great teenage rock bands of the era. Best known for their original version of "Venus" (covered thousands of times, literally, around the world) and their FAR SUPERIOR original version of "Love Buzz" (covered by Nirvana), they had a lot of great tunes! Other great tunes from them are the Indian-tinged "Acka Raga", "Send Me A Postcard" and other killers. Born in The Hague, her father was a Hungarian/Romani gypsy violinist and...

Happy birthday to singer/songwriter/dancer Frankie Lymon, teenage superstar of the '50s. His tune "Why Do Fools Fall In Love", with his group The Teenagers, is still a perennial classic to this day. Born in Harlem, he sang gospel with his sister. He dropped out of school at 10 to work in a store. At 12 he joined a doo-wop group that ultimately became The Teenagers, an integrated vocal group. At the 1956 session for "Why Do Fools Fall In Love", the lead singer was late so Lymon's sweet soprano took the lead and the rest is history. He became an...

One of the greatest figures in salsa music, Puerto Rican sonero Héctor Juan Pérez Martínez was born on this day in 1946. Born in Ponce PR, Héctor Lavoe was childhood friends with Papo Lucca. He moved to NYC at 16, joined Willie Colón's revolutionary band and they proceeded to slay their way to the top of the salsa world. With a smash band, he was thrown into a lifestyle of hard drugs and partying. Combined with several tragedies in his family and community, his habits started catching up to him. In '73 he started his solo career and he had...

Glam rock superstar Marc Bolan was born on this day. Born in London as Mark Feld to an Ashkenazi Jewish family, he grew up listening to the rock & roll boom. He started playing guitar at 9 and had a skiffle band as a teenager. As a young mod he did some acting and found good work as a model, as well as dabbling in poetry. He may have worked with Joe Meek as early as '63 but this is disputed. He changed his name to Toby Tyler and recorded some cover songs in '64. He signed to Decca in...