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Prefer to watch? Watch What Happened To Johnny Ace → It’s the evening of Christmas Day, 1954, and Johnny Ace — one of the biggest singing stars of the day — is due to take to the stage at the City Auditorium in Houston, Texas. But backstage, a gun goes off… and he never makes it. Depending on who you ask — or which version of the story you hear — it was either a tragic accident… a reckless mistake… or something darker. Early Life Born John Marshall Alexander Jr. in 1929, he w

Robert George “Joe” Meek was a song-writer, producer and sound engineer. He was also an independent label, publisher and studio owner. He was the epitome of independence in the music industry. He wrote, recorded, mixed and mastered the first song by a British group to go to number 1 in the USA and sold well over 5 million records, all from his rented flat on the Holloway Road in North London. Joe Meek is often described as the British Phil Spector this is probably as much t

I’m sure you’ve heard at least one of the versions or adaptations of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. It has been re-recorded or adapted over 150 times since it was first recorded in 1939, yet it took until 2006 for the writer Solomon Linda to be credited as a writer. Who was Solomon Linda? Solomon Linda (far left) & The Evening Birds, holding 3 of their trophies for singing contests. Solomon Popoli Ntsele, also known by his clan name “Linda”, was a South African singer known for

Prefer to watch? Watch Mime & Punishment → On the 21st of July 1989, during a “live” performance for MTV the playback device failed and began to skip. Not only did it halt the performance it triggered the beginning of the end of one of the biggest scandals to rock the music industry. This is the story of Milli Vanilli… Milli Vanilli was put together in 1988 by German producer and songwriter, Frank Farian, but we have to go a little bit farther back to truly understand how Mi

At the 2019 Ivor Novello Awards, Richard Ashcroft announced that after 22 years the dispute over his song, “Bittersweet Symphony” was over. The Rolling Stones would no longer be listed as songwriters or collect any royalties from the song. Many people are applauding Keith Richards and Mick Jagger for doing this, I’m not so quick to give them credit (pun intended!). At the time the message coming from The Rolling Stones camp was they were entitled to every penny from the tra