11 ready-to-read segments for January 11, lead story first. Free to use on air; a quick credit to Today in Tunes is appreciated.
On this day in 1963, 63 years ago: The Beatles release "Please Please Me" in the UK. Lennon first pictured it as a slow, Roy Orbison-style song before George Martin asked the band to speed it up. It reached No. 1 on the NME and Melody Maker charts. Here's The Beatles with “Please Please Me.”
On this day in 1940, 86 years ago: Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet opens at the Kirov. Galina Ulanova danced Juliet in the Leningrad production, which won wide acclaim even though choreographer Leonid Lavrovsky altered the score over Prokofiev's objections.
On this day in 1971, 55 years ago: Janis Joplin's Pearl is released. Issued three months after her death, it spent nine weeks at No. 1 and included "Me and Bobby McGee." One track stayed instrumental because she never recorded its vocal.
On this day in 1984, 42 years ago: A Radio 1 DJ takes aim at "Relax" on air. Mike Read's on-air objection was followed days later by a BBC ban on Frankie Goes to Hollywood's debut. The single still climbed to No. 1 and stayed there five weeks.
On this day in 1992, 34 years ago: Nirvana's Nevermind hits No. 1 on the album chart. Less than four months after its September 1991 release, the album knocked Michael Jackson's Dangerous from the top of the Billboard 200.
On this day in 1902, 124 years ago: Composer Maurice Duruflé is born in France. A fiercely self-critical organist, he published only a handful of works. His Requiem, finished in 1947, remains his best-known piece.
On this day in 1942, 84 years ago: Clarence Clemons is born in Virginia. Known as the Big Man, he played sax in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band from 1972 until his death, including the soaring solo on "Jungleland."
On this day in 1946, 80 years ago: Naomi Judd is born in Ashland, Kentucky. With her daughter Wynonna she formed the Judds in 1980. The duo won five Grammys and racked up twenty top-ten country hits.
On this day in 1956, 70 years ago: Big Bank Hank is born in the Bronx. Henry Jackson was managing a rap crew and working at a pizzeria when he joined the Sugarhill Gang, whose "Rapper's Delight" carried hip hop onto the pop charts.
On this day in 1971, 55 years ago: Mary J. Blige is born in the Bronx. Crowned the Queen of Hip-Hop Soul after her 1992 debut What's the 411?, she has won nine Grammys and topped the Hot 100 with "Family Affair."
On this day in 1999, 27 years ago: Italian songwriter Fabrizio De André dies. The Genoa-born singer-songwriter, whose "La canzone di Marinella" became a hit after Mina sang it on TV, died in Milan at 58.
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