May 3
We remember the Godfather of Soul James Brown on his birthday today in 1933, the hardest working man in show business whose funk innovations and explosive performances influenced everyone from Michael Jackson to hip-hop while his control issues and legal troubles proved genius came with a dark side before his death in 2006… We honor folk's greatest activist Pete Seeger on his birthday today in 1919, the banjo-playing troubadour whose "We Shall Overcome" and blacklist survival proved that music could fight McCarthyism and advance civil rights across seven decades of leftist conviction before his death in 2014… We remember crooning's first multimedia star Bing Crosby on his birthday today in 1903, the singer whose "White Christmas" became the best-selling single ever while his film career and pioneering use of recording technology made him the 20th century's most successful entertainer before his death in 1977… Doo-wop's most enduring...
