March 29

Jam band rock's most virtuosic harmonica player John Popper celebrates his 59th birthday today, the Blues Traveler frontman whose rapid-fire harp work on "Run-Around" proved that traditional blues instruments could dominate 1990s alternative rock radio…

 

Rock's most durable survivor faced mortality on this day in 2005 when Neil Young was treated for a brain aneurysm in New York, the medical emergency threatening to end the career of the Canadian legend who had somehow outlasted countless contemporaries despite decades of hard living…

 

Alternative rock's most flamboyant ringleader Perry Farrell was born today in 1959, the Jane's Addiction frontman whose creation of Lollapalooza proved equally important to his band's drug-fueled art-rock, transforming the festival landscape and launching alternative music's commercial explosion…

 

We remember electronic music's most cinematic composer Vangelis on his birthday today in 1943, born Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou, the Greek synthesizer master whose 'Chariots of Fire' and 'Blade Runner' scores proved that electronic music could create timeless emotion before his death in 2022…

 

Jazz lost its most elegant baritone on this day in 1999 when Joe Williams died at 80, ending the career of the Count Basie Orchestra vocalist whose sophisticated delivery and "Every Day I Have the Blues" made him one of the genre's most respected and enduring voices.