Music History Today: January 6, 2021

January 6, 1979: Melissa Manchester's version of "Don't Cry Out Loud" enters the Billboard Top 40. 

"Don't Cry Out Loud" is a song written in 1976 by Peter Allen with lyricist Carole Bayer Sager. The first evident recording of the song is by The Moments as "We Don't Cry Out Loud."

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According to Arista Records president Clive Davis, Melissa Manchester recorded "Don't Cry Out Loud" at his strong suggestion as Davis felt that Manchester's intended 1979 album release lacked a potential Top 40 comeback hit. 

Read more: Wikipedia

January 6, 1924: Bluegrass musician Earl Scruggs is born near Boiling Springs, North Carolina.

Perhaps the most influential banjo player of the past century, Earl Scruggs was known as the “Father of Bluegrass Banjo.” 

Earl Scruggs and Friends

Scruggs popularized a three-finger picking style that defined bluegrass banjo playing and spread like wildfire among banjo players all over the world. Today, Scruggs-style banjo playing is still the standard in bluegrass. 

Read more: Blue Ridge Heritage

January 6, 1976:  Peter Frampton's live double album, Frampton Comes Alive!, is released. 

By 1976, Peter Frampton had yet to attain the success he'd hoped for when he left Humble Pie to go solo in 1971.

Up to that point, the guitarist had released four studio albums, with only 1975's Frampton selling as many as 300,000 LPs. But the earth shifted under Frampton's feet with the release of Frampton Comes Alive! in January 1976.  

Read more: Ultimate Classic Rock 

January 6, 1973: Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" hits Number 1 on the Hot 100. 

For decades, Carly Simon has played coy about “You’re So Vain.” The song itself is a provocation and a challenge and a meta-commentary on itself: “You’re so vain, I bet you think this song is about you.” The song’s power comes from us not knowing who it’s about, and from us wanting to know.

So in the years since the song hit #1, Simon has been playing games with it. She’s ruled out possibilities, saying that the song definitely isn’t about Mick Jagger, who sings uncredited backup vocals on it, or about James Taylor, whom she married a few months before the song hit #1. 

Read more: Stereogum