April 3, 1922: Actress and singer Doris Day was born Doris Mary Ann Kappelhoff in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Doris Day studied ballet and tap dance growing up. She even won a local dance contest with her partner Jerry Doherty in her early teens.
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| Doris Day with her dog in 1968 |
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But her dreams of dancing professionally were shattered along with her leg in a 1937 car accident. The daughter of a music teacher, Day started taking voice lessons during her recovery. Ella Fitzgerald was one of her early inspirations as she developed her own vocal style.
Read more: Biography
April 3,1961: The Marcels' "Blue Moon" hit Number 1 in America.
The Marcels turned the Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart popular ballad “Blue Moon” into a classic doo wop song. “Blue Moon” was originally written for the film Manhattan Melodrama in1934, and it became a pop standard.
Many, many artists covered the song, including Elvis Presley, Mel Torme, Dean Martin, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Frank Sinatra. The Marcels, though, give it a doo wop flare, starting it with “bomp-baba-bom,” add a “dip-da-dip,” and going on from there.
Read more: Daily Doo Wop
April 3, 1971: The Temptations' "Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)" hit Number 1 for the first of two weeks.
“Just My Imagination” is a song about dreaming that you’re with someone while knowing that it’s not true. The song’s lyrics are simple and direct, the way so many great pop songs are.
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| The Temptations |
And Eddie Kendricks breathes life into them, turning them into something tangible and heart-wrecking. The things that Eddie Kendricks does with his voice on this song absolutely destroy me. His falsetto is a soft and delicate murmur, the sound of a man singing to himself, getting lost in his own daydreams.
Read more: Stereogum
April 3, 1976: Johnnie Taylor's "Disco Lady" hit Number 1 on the Hot 100, becoming the first chart-topper with the word "disco" in the title.
Johnnie Taylor’s “Disco Lady” wasn’t a disco song. Instead, it was a sweaty, swampy soul-groove. Taylor himself was pretty clear about this. Talking about the song in Fred Bronson’s Billboard Book Of Number 1 Hits, Taylor said, “A lot of people got ‘Disco Lady’ mixed up. They thought it was disco. It was not a disco tune. We were just talking about disco.”
Read more: Stereogum
April 3, 1999: "Every Morning" by Sugar Ray peaked at Number 3 on the Hot 100 chart.
There are reasons people love Sugar Ray frontman Mark McGrath. He's good looking, he's charming, and he's written some very catchy pop songs. Those are, coincidentally, the same reasons some people hate him.
Mark McGrath One of his band's catchy songs in particular has drawn more than its share of ire — “Every Morning.” In 1999 “Every Morning” seemed to play every hour on the hour. A backlash followed; Buzzfeed named it one of its 20 worst songs of the '90s. Even “Worst Songs” lists that omit it are full of “where's 'Every Morning?'” comments. But you know what? All of those people are full of it.
Read more: LA Weekly
Que Sera Sera
Doris Day
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