May 16
Progressive rock's greatest guitar intellectual Robert Fripp celebrates his 80th birthday today, the King Crimson founder whose discipline and technical mastery proved that virtuosity and avant-garde experimentation could coexist while his marriage to Toyah Willcox showed even perfectionists could find love… Heavy metal lost one of its greatest voices today in 2010 when Ronnie James Dio died at 67 after battling stomach cancer, ending the career of the diminutive singer whose work with Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and his own band proved that fantasy lyrics and operatic power could define the genre… Jazz-rock fusion's most explosive drummer Billy Cobham celebrates his 82nd birthday today, the Mahavishnu Orchestra timekeeper whose technical precision and polyrhythmic mastery influenced every fusion and prog-rock drummer who followed across five decades of powerful innovation… Grunge's tallest bassist Krist Novoselic turns 61 today, the Nirvana co-founder whose...
