Five birthdays to note today...

12/15/1919 - Born on this day, Max Yasgur, owner of the Woodstock farm where the legendary 1969 festival took place. Max suffered a heart attack on February 8th, 1973; he was just 53 when he died. Couldn't have had that classic event without him...

12/15/1922 - Born on this day, Alan Freed, arguably the most influential American radio DJ of all time. His "Moondog Show" in the 1950's was the very first of its kind, mixing blues, country & western and rhythm & blues in ways that had never been done on-the-air before. The payola scandal of the 1960's unfortunately diminished his contributions, but no doubt about it -- Alan Freed created the term "rock and roll" and paved the way for everything that followed. Alcoholism contributed to his early death at age 43 on February 20th, 1965.

12/15/1942 - Happy Birthday to drummer-producer-songwriter Dave Clark, 73 years old today. In a recent interview about his forthcoming re-issue of "The River", Bruce Springsteen said he wanted his records to sound as good as The Dave Clark Five's "Glad All Over". So there you go...

12/15/1946 - Another classic rock drummer celebrating a birthday today: Carmine Appice turns 69. After co-founding Vanilla Fudge, Carmine established himself as one of the upper-tier go-to-guys, recording and touring with Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, Ozzy Osbourne, Ted Nugent, Paul Stanley, Rick Derringer, plus some interesting jazz-prog material with the likes of Stanley Clarke and Jan Akkerman. By the way, that's Carmine playing drums on Pink Floyd's "The Dogs Of War" from "A Momentary Lapse Of Reason".

12/15/1955 - Happy Birthday Paul Simonon, bass player for The Clash, 60 years old today. Paul most recently has worked with Damon Albarn on the Gorillaz and The Good, The Bad & The Queen projects; also has quite a reputation as an artist, with several painting exhibitions in London to his credit. So, cool then...

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"I'll make you happy/You'll never be blue...", xoxo!

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