Jan. 11: Vicki Peterson of the Bangles, "Manic Monday, "Walk Like an Egyptian" - is 53 today.

Victoria Anne Theresa Peterson was born in 1958 in Northridge, California. In 1981, she founded The Bangs, later renamed The Bangles, with her sister Debbi Peterson and Susanna Hoffs. Vicki sang and played guitar, as did Susanna. Debbi played the drums. Annette Zilinskas joined later and sang and played bass.


They originally called themselves The Colours, then renamed itself The Supersonic Bangs, and shortly afterwards The Bangs. A legal issue forced the band to change their name at the last minute so they dropped "The" and added the letters "les" to the end to become Bangles.


The band was part of the Los Angeles Paisley Underground scene, which featured groups that played a mixture of 1960s-influenced folk-rock and jangle pop with a more modern punk–ish/garage band flavor.


In 1981, the threesome recorded and released a single record, "Getting Out Of Hand" and on the flipside, "Call on Me," on DownKiddie Records which was their own label. In 1982, the trio was signed to Faulty Products, a label formed by Miles Copeland.

In 1982, they released the single "The Real World." Their first EP was retitled Bangles and released that year. In 1983, Faulty Products issued a 12 inch "remix" single of "The Real World" to radio and media, but another setback came as the label folded. I.R.S. Records picked up distribution and re-issued the EP.

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When Zilinskas left the band to focus on her own project Blood on the Saddle, she was replaced by Michael Steele, formerly of the all-girl band The Runaways, Toni & The Movers, Slow Children and Elton Duck.


The Bangles' full-length debut album on Columbia, All Over the Place, released in 1984, featured the singles "Hero Takes a Fall" and the "Going Down To Liverpool." The record received good reviews, and the video for "Liverpool" featured Leonard Nimoy, which helped to generate further publicity. This came about due to a college friendship between Hoffs and Nimoy's son Adam, a television producer. They received a much wider awareness serving as the opening act of Cyndi Lauper on her Fun tour.


The group attracted the attention of Prince, who later wrote "Manic Monday" for the group. "Manic Monday" went on to become a #2 hit in the US, the UK and Germany, outsold at the time only by another Prince composition, his own "Kiss." The band's second album Different Light, released in 1986, was more polished than its predecessor and produced the worldwide #1 hit "Walk Like an Egyptian."


Due to friction within the band, the Bangles disbanded in 1989. Afterwards, Vicki played with the Continental Drifters and The Psycho Sisters, alongside Susan Cowsill formerly of the Cowsills. (Peterson married Cowsill's brother John in October 2003).

In addition to performing their own material, The Psycho Sisters freelanced as celebrity backing singers for Steve Wynn's Fluorescent, Giant Sand's Center of the Universe, and Peterson has also contributed harmony vocals to recordings by the Hoodoo Gurus, John Doe and Belinda Carlisle. Additionally, she replaced a pregnant Charlotte Caffey on the 1994–95 Go-Go's reunion tour.


In 2000, The Bangles reunited and embarked on a tour. That same year, they were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame.






In 2001–2002, they recorded a new album Doll Revolution. Doll Revolution, featuring such songs as "Stealing Rosemary," "Ride the Ride," "Nickel Romeo," and the single "Something That You Said." The title track was written by Elvis Costello, who initially recorded it for his 2002 album When I Was Cruel.

Doll Revolution was a solid comeback success in Germany after the Bangles had performed in Germany's biggest television show Wetten dass, but failed to make any impact in other important markets such as the UK, the U.S. and Australia.

In July 2004, The Bangles were made Companions of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts.

The Bangles returned to the studio in spring of 2009 to begin work on a new album.


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Jan. 11: R&B, hip-hop singer Mary J. Blige is 40 today.

Mary Jane Blige, is an American singer, producer, songwriter, actress, and rapper. She has received 9 Grammy awards, and 4 American Music Awards and 8 multi-platinum records to date. She has also received the World Music Legends Award for combining hip hop and soul in the early 1990s.

She was ranked number 100 in the list of 100 greatest singers of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.

Blige was born in Yonkers, New York. She spent her early years in Richmond Hill, Georgia, where she sang in a Pentecostal church. She later moved to Slobaum Houses in Yonkers, New York, where she lived with her mother, older sister, five cousins, and two aunts. She dropped out of school in the eleventh grade.

At the age of 17, Blige recorded an impromptu cover of Anita Baker's "Caught Up In the Rapture" at a recording booth in the Galleria Mall in White Plains, New York. Her mother's boyfriend at the time later played the cassette for Jeff Redd, a recording artist and A&R runner for Uptown Records.


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Redd sent it to the president and CEO of the label, Andre Harrell. Harrell met with Blige and in 1989 she was signed to the label, becoming the company's youngest and first female artist. Production for Blige's debut album began in 1992, with Sean "Puffy" Combs, who was at the time an A&R executive at Uptown who oversaw the project.

In July 1992, Uptown Records released What's the 411? "You Remind Me," the album's first single, peaked at number one on the R&B singles chart that summer. The second single, "Real Love," was released in the fall. It too topped the R&B singles chart, and became Blige's first top ten Hot 100 single, peaking at number seven. Both singles were certified gold for their sales volume.

Among Blige's most popular songs to date include "Family Affair," "Real Love," "Not Gon' Cry" and "Be Without You." Blige has had four Billboard Hot 100 top-singles charting in the United States, and has had a total of sixteen total top forty charting singles in the United States. She has had thirty-three singles charting inside the top one hundred on the Billboard Hot 100, making Blige one of the best-performing R&B artists to date.

Since 1998, Blige has also starred in various movie roles, beginning in The Jamie Foxx Show as Ola Mae. She appeared in the "Papa Don't Preach" episode in season 2. Since then, Blige has gone on to play major roles in big-budget Hollywood movies, such as Prison Song, where she played the main role as Mrs. Butler.

As of 2010, Blige has sold over 50 million albums and 15 million singles. Blige cites Anita Baker, Chaka Khan, Teena Marie, and Aretha Franklin as influences.


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Jan. 10: "Scarecrow" Ray Bolger - " Once In Love With Amy "- was born on this date in 1904...

... he died on January 15, 1987 of bladder cancer five days after his 83rd birthday.

Raymond Wallace "Ray" Bolgera star of stage and screen, is best remembered for his portrayal of the Scarecrow and Kansas farmworker Hunk in the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz.

Bolger was born Raymond Wallace Bolger in Dorchester, a section of Boston, Massachusetts, He was inspired by the vaudeville shows he attended when he was young to become an entertainer himself.

He began his career by creating the act "Sanford & Bolger" with his dance partner. In 1926, he danced at New York City's Palace Theatre, the top vaudeville theatre in the country. His limber body and ability to ad lib movement won him many starring roles on Broadway in the 1930s. Eventually, his career would also encompass film, television and nightclub work.

Bolger's Broadway credits included Life Begins at 8:40, On Your Toes, By Jupiter, All American, and Where's Charley?, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical and in which he introduced "Once in Love with Amy," the song often connected with him. He repeated his stage role in the 1952 Technicolor film version of the musical.

Bolger's film career began when he signed a contract with MGM in 1936. His best-known film appearance prior to The Wizard of Oz was The Great Ziegfeld from 1936 in which he portrayed himself. But he also appeared in Sweethearts, the first MGM film in Technicolor, starring Nelson Eddy, Jeanette MacDonald, and Bolger's future Oz co-star, Frank Morgan - as well as the 1937 Eleanor Powell vehicle Rosalie, which also starred Eddy and Morgan.

But it all comes back to the Scarecrow. Bolger's M-G-M contract stipulated that he would play any part the studio chose; however, he was unhappy when he was cast as the Tin Man. The Scarecrow part had already been assigned to another lean and limber dancing studio contract player, Buddy Ebsen.

In time, the roles were switched. While Bolger was pleased with his role as the Scarecrow, Ebsen was struck ill by the powdered aluminum make-up used to complete the Tin Woodman costume. The powdered aluminum badly coated Ebsen's lungs, leaving him near death. Ebsen's illness paved the way for the Tin Woodman role to be filled by Jack Haley.

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Whenever asked as to whether he received any residuals from telecasts of the 1939 classic, Bolger would reply: "No, just immortality. I'll settle for that."

He was good friends with actress Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch of the West, until her death, and gave a eulogy at her memorial service. Judy Garland often referred to Bolger as "My Scarecrow." Upon the death of Haley, Bolger said, "It's going to be very lonely on that Yellow Brick Road now."


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Jan. 10: Sal Mineo, “The Gene Krupa Story,” “Rebel Without A Cause,” was born on this date in 1939…

… he was murdered on February 12, 1976 when he was 37 years old.

Salvatore “Sal” Mineo, Jr. was born in The Bronx, New York City and was enrolled by his mother in dancing and acting school at an early age. In 1957, Mineo made a brief foray into music by recording a handful of songs and an album. Two of his singles reached the Top 40 pop charts. In 1959, Sal also starred as drummer Gene Krupa in the movie The Gene Krupa Story.

A little-known facet of Mineo’s career was his involvement with opera. On May 8, 1954, he portrayed the Page (miming to the voice of mezzo-soprano Carol Jones) in the NBC Opera Theatre’s production of Richard Strauss’ Salome, set to the play of Oscar Wilde.


But Mineo was best known as an actor. In 1950, he had his first stage appearance in the Tennessee Williams play The Rose Tattoo. He also played the young prince opposite Yul Brynner in the stage musical The King and I.


His breakthrough performance came in 1955 when he starred opposite James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause. Mineo played John “Plato” Crawford, the sensitive teenager smitten with James Dean’s Jim Stark.

Biographer, Paul Jeffers, recounted that Mineo received thousands of fan letters from young female admirers, was mobbed by them at public appearances and further wrote, “He dated the most beautiful women in Hollywood and New York.” Mineo also appeared in Dean’s last film in 1956, Giant, although they didn’t share any screen time.

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Many of his subsequent roles were variations of his role in Rebel Without a Cause and he often played juvenile delinquents. In the Disney adventure Tonka, for instance, Mineo starred as a young Sioux named White Bull who traps and domesticates a clear-eyed, spirited wild horse named “Tonka” who becomes the famous horse Comanche.


In 1960, Mineo’s acting ability and exotic good looks earned him a role as a Jewish emigrant in Otto Preminger’s Exodus for which he received another Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor.

By the early 1960s he was getting too old to play the types that had made him famous and for a variety of reasons wasn’t considered appropriate for leading roles. He auditioned for David Lean’s film Lawrence of Arabia but wasn’t hired. Mineo was baffled by his sudden loss of popularity, later saying “One minute it seemed I had more movie offers than I could handle, the next, no one wanted me.”


His role as a stalker in Who Killed Teddy Bear? (1965), co-starring Juliet Prowse, didn’t seem to help. Although his performance was praised by critics, he found himself typecast anew, now as a deranged criminal.


He returned to the stage to produce the gay-themed Fortune and Men’s Eyes (1971), starring Don Johnson of later Miami Vice fame. Although the play got positive reviews in Los Angeles, it was panned during a run in New York and its expanded prison rape scene was criticized as excessive and prurient.

A string of failed projects and flops followed. In 1971 a small role in Escape from the Planet of the Apes as chimpanzee Dr. Milo turned out to be Mineo’s last movie appearance.

By 1976 Mineo’s career seemed to be turning around again. Playing the role of a gay burglar in a San Francisco run of the stage comedy P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, he received substantial publicity from many positive reviews and moved on to Los Angeles with the play. Arriving home after a rehearsal on February 12, 1976, Mineo was stabbed to death in the alley behind a West Hollywood apartment building. He was 37 years old.


According to Warren Johansson and William A. Percy’s Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence, he was murdered under circumstances that suggested “a homosexual motive.”

A career criminal named Lionel Ray Williams was later sentenced to life in prison for killing Mineo. Although there was considerable confusion relating to what witnesses had seen in the darkness the night Mineo was murdered, Williams was reported to have boasted of the crime, which turned out to be a botched mugging. At the time of the murder, Williams had no idea who Sal Mineo was.


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Jan. 10: Crooner Johnnie Ray, "Cry," "Just a Walkin' in the Rain" - was born on this day in 1927...

... he died on February 24, 1990 when he was 63 years-old.

John Alvin Ray was born in Dallas, Oregon. He was of Native American origin; his great-grandmother was a full-blooded Blackfoot Indian and his great-grandfather was Oregon pioneer George Kirby Gay of Berkeley, Gloucestershire, England.

Popular for most of the 1950s, Ray has been cited by critics as a key forerunner of what would become rock and roll, because of his jazz and blues-influenced music and his stage presence. Ray's performing style included theatrics included beating up his piano, writhing on the floor and crying. As a result, Ray earned was referred to as "Mr. Emotion," "The Nabob of Sob," and "The Prince of Wails."

Inspired by rhythm singers like Kay Starr, LaVern Baker and Ivory Joe Hunter, Ray developed a unique rhythm-based style, described as alternating between pre-rock R&B and a more conventional classic pop approach.

Ray lost his hearing in is right ear at age 13 after an accident during a Boy Scout event. Ray later performed wearing a hearing aid. Surgery performed in New York in 1958 left him almost completely deaf in both ears, although hearing aids helped his condition.

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Ray's first record, the self-penned R&B number for OKeh Records, "Whiskey and Gin," was a minor hit in 1951. The following year he dominated the charts with the double-sided hit single of "Cry" and "The Little White Cloud That Cried." Selling over two million copies of the 78rpm single, Ray's delivery struck a chord with teenagers and he quickly became a teen idol.

More hits followed, including "Please Mr. Sun," "Such a Night," "Walkin' My Baby Back Home," "A Sinner Am I," and "Yes Tonight Josephine." He had a UK Christmas #1 hit with "Just Walkin' in the Rain" in 1956. He hit again in 1957 with "You Don't Owe Me a Thing," which reached #10 in the Billboard charts. He was popular in the United Kingdom, breaking the record at the London Palladium formerly set by Frankie Laine. In later years, he retained a loyal fan base overseas, particularly in Australia.

In early 1969, Ray befriended Judy Garland, performing as her opening act during her last concerts in Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmo, Sweden. His career in the U.S. underwent a resurgence in the early 1970s, with appearances on The Andy Williams Show in 1970 and The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson three times during 1972 and 1973. However, the revival was short-lived.

Ray drank regularly and his alcoholism caught up with him in 1960, when he was hospitalized for tuberculosis. He recovered but continued drinking, and was diagnosed with cirrhosis at age fifty.

On February 24, 1990, Ray died of liver failure at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
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Jan. 10: Pat Benatar - "Love Is a Battlefield,” "Hit Me with Your Best Shot” and "Heartbreaker,” is 58 today.

YouTube video of "Love is a Battlefield" is at end of this post.)

Pat Benatar is a four time Grammy winner. She had considerable commercial success particularly in the United States. During the 1980s, Benatar had two RIAA-certified Multi-Platinum albums, five RIAA-certified Platinum albums, three RIAA-certified Gold albums and 19 Top 40 singles, including "Love Is a Battlefield,” "Hit Me with Your Best Shot,” "We Belong" and "Heartbreaker.” Benatar was one of the most heavily played artists in the early days of MTV.

Patricia Mae Andrzejewski was born in Greenpoint, Brooklyn and grew up in Lindenhurst, New York on Long Island. “Patti” was interested in theater and began voice lessons at an early age, and sang her first solo, “It Must Be Spring,” at age eight.

At Lindenhurst Senior High School Benatar participated in musical theater, march din the homecoming parade, sang at the annual Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony, and performed a solo of "The Christmas Song" on a holiday recording of the Lindenhurst High School Choir her senior year.

Her parents were strict, and while she could go to symphonies, opera and theater, she couldn't go to clubs. She has said while she was singing Puccini and West Side Story she spent her free time with her little transistor radio listening to the Rolling Stones.

With plans to attend the Julliard School and study classical music, she instead pursued health education at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, dropped out after one year to marry her boyfriend. Pat became a bank teller.

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In 1973, Benatar quit her job to pursue a singing career. She got a job as a singing waitress at a flapper-esque nightclub named The Roaring Twenties and got a gig singing in lounge band Coxon's Army, a regular at Sam Miller's basement club.

In 1975, the couple headed back to New York following Dennis' discharge from the army, and Benatar went on to be a regular member at Catch A Rising Star for close to three years, until signing a record contract. She also landed the part of Zephyr in Harry Chapin's futuristic rock musical, The Zinger.

On Halloween 1977, rather than change out of the vampire costume she had worn to a Greenwich Village cafe party that evening, she went on at Catch A Rising Star wearing black tights, black eyeliner and a short black top. The audience went wild, and Pat Benaatar’s new image was born.

After two lackluster records, Benatar's third single "Heartbreaker" was released in early December 1979 and became an immediate hit, climbing to #23 in the U.S. A fourth single "We Live for Love," which was written by her future husband Neil Giraldo, was released in February 1980, and reached U.S. #27.

Benatar's debut album In the Heat of the Night was released in October 1979, and reached #12 in the U.S. It established Benatar as a new force in rock. Producer Mike Chapman, who had worked with Blondie and The Knack, broke his vow not to take on any new artists when he heard Benatar's demo tape.

Chapman personally produced three tracks on the album. The album also featured two songs written by Roger Capps and Benatar as well as "I Need a Lover" written by John Mellencamp and "Don't Let It Show" written by Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson. The album would be Benatar's first RIAA certified platinum album.

In August 1980, Benatar released her LP, Crimes of Passion, featuring her signature song "Hit Me with Your Best Shot." The song was her first single to break the U.S. Top 10 and eventually sold more than one million copies in the U.S. The album peaked for five consecutive weeks at U.S. #2 in January 1981 (behind Yoko Ono and John Lennon's Double Fantasy) and eventually sold over five million copies. A month later, Benatar won her first Grammy Award for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" of 1980.


It was just the beginning of Pat Benatar’s successful recording and performing career.

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In June 2010, Benatar's memoir, Between a Heart and a Rock Place was released. The book touches on her battles with her record company Chrysalis, and the difficulties her career caused in her personal life.

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Jan. 10: Rod Stewart - "Maggie May, " "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" "Tonight's the Night" - is 65 today.

Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE, was born and raised in North London. With his raspy singing voice, Stewart came to the forefront on the music scene in the late 1960s and early 1970s with The Jeff Beck Group and then Faces.

He launched his solo career in 1969 with his debut album An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down (in the U.S., The Rod Stewart Album).


With his career in its fifth decade, Stewart has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best selling artists of all time.

In the UK, he has had six consecutive number one albums, and his tally of 62 hit singles include 31 that reached the top 10, six of which hit number one. He has had 16 top ten singles in the U.S, with four of these reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100.

In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked him the 17th most successful artist on the "The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists." He was voted at #33 in Q Magazine's list of the top 100 Greatest Singers of all time.

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Growing up Stewart's main hobby was railway modelling, and his family were big football (soccer) fans. Rod was a strong supporter of Arsenal F.C. Combining natural athleticism with near-reckless aggression, he became captain of the school football team and played for Middlesex Schoolboys as centre-half.

The family were also great fans of the singer Al Jolson and would sing and play his hits. Stewart collected his records and saw his films, read books about him, and was influenced by his performing style. His introduction to rock and roll was Little Richard's 1956 hit "The Girl Can't Help It" and seeing Bill Haley & His Comets in concert.

His father bought him a guitar in January 1959, and the first song he learned was the folk tune "It Takes a Worried Man to Sing a Worried Song" and the first record he bought was Eddie Cochran's "C'mon Everybody." In 1960, he joined a skiffle group with schoolfriends called the Kool Kats, playing Lonnie Donegan and Chas McDevitt hits.


Stewart left school at age 15 and worked briefly as a silk screen printer. Spurred on by his father, his ambition was to become a professional footballer but he quickly realized it was not to be and that music would probably be easier.

Stewart began playing the harmonica. On several trips over 18 months Stewart performed in Brighton and then Paris, sleeping under bridges over the River Seine, and then finally to Barcelona. Eventually, Stewart was rounded up and deported from Spain for vagrancy.


In the spring of 1962, Stewart joined The Ray Davies Quartet, later known as the The Kinks, as their lead singer. He had known three of their members at William Grimshaw School and at the time.  He performed with the group on at least one occasion, but was soon dropped due to complaints about his voice from then-drummer John Start's mother as well as musical and personality differences with the rest of the band.

Stewart then briefly fronted his own group, Rod Stewart & The Moontrekkers, who competed with Davies' band.




In 1963, Stewart adopted the Mod lifestyle and look, and began fashioning the spiky rooster hairstyle that would become his trademark. Disillusioned by rock and roll, he saw Otis Redding perform in concert and began listening to Sam Cooke records; he became fascinated by rhythm and blues and soul music.

He bounced between different groups after that until he made some demo recordings, was scouted by Decca Records at the Marquee Club and signed to a solo contract in August 1964. He appeared on several regional television shows around the country and recorded his first single in September 1964 "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl," which flopped.


In February 1967, Stewart joined the Jeff Beck Group as vocalist and sometime songwriter. This would become the big break of his early career. There he first played with Ronnie Wood whom he had first met in a London pub in 1964; the two soon became close friends.


In October 1969 Stewart and Wood formed Faces and Stewart also pursued a solo career. An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down became Stewart's first solo album in 1969. It was a mixture of folk, rock, and country blues, with both original material ("Cindy's Lament" and the title song) and cover versions (Ewan MacColl's "Dirty Old Town" and Mike d'Abo's "Handbags and Gladrags.")

Faces released their debut album First Step in early 1970 with a rock and roll style similar to the Rolling Stones. While the album did better in the U.K. than in the U.S., the Faces quickly earned a strong live following. Stewart released his second album, Gasoline Alley that autumn a mandolin introduced into the sound.





Stewart's 1971 solo album Every Picture Tells a Story made him a household name when the B-side of his minor hit "Reason to Believe," "Maggie May," started receiving radio play. The album and the single hit number one in both the U.S. and the U.K.in September. A loss of innocence tale set off by a striking mandolin part (by Ray Jackson of Lindisfarne), "Maggie May" was also named in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll, which is one of three songs by him to appear on that list.

Rod was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and the U.K. Music Hall of Fame in 2006.


In May 2000, Stewart was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, for which he underwent surgery in the same month. Besides being a major health scare, the resulting surgery also threatened his famous voice, and he had to re-learn how to sing. Since then he has been active in raising funds for The City of Hope Foundation charity to find cures for all forms of cancer, especially those affecting children.


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