Music History Today: January 4, 2022

January 4, 2014: Tessanne Chin, winner of NBC's Season show The Voice, entered the Billboard singles chart at Number 51 with her cover of "I Have Nothing." 

Tessanne Chin shot to fame after singing her way to victory on the fifth season of NBC's The Voice in 2013.

 

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The Jamaican-born performer teamed up with Maroon 5's Adam Levine and wowed the coaches and audiences alike with her powerhouse vocals. Chin released her first major solo album just months after her Voice victory, and here's a look at what she's been up to ever since. 

Read more: The List

January 4, 1960: "El Paso" by Marty Robbins is the Number 1 hit for the first two weeks of the new year.

Marty Robbins got more than a No. 1 country single from the original version of "El Paso," as heard on the 1959 album Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. It crossed over to the top of Billboard's pop charts, making it an unlikely example of how pop-country existed long before it started making you mad 20 years ago. 

Read more: Wike Open Country

January 4, 1964: Lesley Gore makes a big move on the US music chart, from Number 72 to 49, with "You Don't Own Me."

Lesley Gore's coolly mutinous "You Don't Own Me" is richly scored, building from a minor-key dirge in the verses to a spirited chorus.

Lesley Gore

The 1963 hit reframed the 17-year-old Gore as a confident chanteuse, rather than the pert pop princess then best-known for such bubblegum hits as "It's My Party" and "Judy's Turn To Cry." 

Read more: NPR

January 4, 1969: "Touch Me" by The Doors flies from Number 72 to 37 into the American Top 40.

Perhaps no artist before or since has oozed the amount or quality of sexuality as The Doors front-man Jim Morrison.

Jim Morrison

Shirtless, eyes looking into your soul, neck tilted, curly lion’s mane locks of hair—the guy had it. So, it’s no surprise that some of The Doors’ most popular songs share that same sexualized quality. For evidence, see: “Touch Me.” 

Read more: American Songwriter

January 4, 1975: Lynyrd Skynyrd entered the American Top 40 with "Free Bird."

Few songs have defined a band or a genre quite as much as Free Bird. Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ode to the freedom of the road and the people it leaves behind wasn’t their biggest hit chart-wise – Sweet Home Alabama and That Smell both outdid it in the Billboard chart – but it became their passport to immortality and the unofficial anthem of the southern rock nation. 

Read more: Louder Sound

I Have Nothing
Tessanne Chin