Today, find out what "paying your dues" really means... A great but underappreciated U.K. rocker's birthday... horrifying real life tragedy that still resonates...

(Faces "Ooh-La-La" LP inner sleeve artwork, March 1973/Courtesy of Warner Bros. Records)
(Faces "Ooh-La-La" LP inner sleeve artwork, March 1973/Courtesy of Warner Bros. Records)
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4/01/1961 (59 years ago today) - File under: "They were bound to get better" -- The Beatles begin their residency at Hamburg's Top Ten Club where they play [get this] 92 nights in a row and [get this, part two] they play for seven hours a night during the week, eight hours on the weekends, with an almost fifteen-minute break an hour (still though...yeesh!) -- This was the visit where Stuart Sutcliffe got his haircut by girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr which, not much later, was adopted by everybody in the band: the infamous Beatle hair styles are born...

4/01/1984 (36 years ago today) - It was hard to believe it actually happened...but it did: Marvin Gaye was shot and killed by his father, following a rather heated argument between both Marvin's Mom and Dad over misplaced business documents -- When Marvin intervenes, he is killed by the very gun he purchased for his father just four months earlier. Marvin Sr. pleads guilty to manslaughter; first-degree murder charges are dropped when it is discovered that he has an irreversible brain tumor...

4/01/1946 - Born on this date, Ronnie Lane, founding member/bass player/vocalist/songwriter for U.K. psychedelic legends The Small Faces, then later, simply Faces (featuring Rod Stewart) -- With his band Slim Chance, Ronnie famously toured England performing as part of a full-scale carnival, complete with big-top tent, barkers, animals...the whole bit! It was while recording the fantastic classic "Rough Mix" album with Pete Townshend in 1977, that Ronnie learned he had multiple-sclerosis. The Rolling Stones, Jimmy PageSteve Winwood, Jeff Beck and most of Great Britain's rock royalty performed charity concerts for Ronnie, enabling his move to Austin, Texas, where he passed away while undergoing treatments. Ronnie was just 51 years old at the time. Check out Faces' "Ooh-La-La" album for some of his best stuff, like:

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"I wish that I knew what I know now/When I was younger...", xoxo.

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