Birthdays today include Harry Mills of the singing Mills Brothers . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuDm_dZX_y8(Trivia: in 1930 the Mills Brothers made broadcasting history when CBS's Bill Paley listened
to them by a telephone hookup and liked them so much he put them on the air in their own show,
the first black people to have their own network broadcast show. Paley also put them on opposite
NBC's smash
Amos 'n' Andy, wondering if four honest-to-God black men could knock a pair
of white humourists doing blackface off the top of the radio heap. The Mills Brothers became stars,
but they weren't quite enough to take
Amos 'n' Andy down. At the time, nobody was.)
. . . Billy Henderson, a founding member of the Spinners who stayed with the group until 2004 . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ4-FClrBtw. . . Viv Prince, drummer for the Pretty Things, who played on their earliest recordings before his
apparent wild antics proved too much even for that wild and crazed bunch . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOImKEcnwf4. . . Barbara Mason, R&B singer . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JGPcOkebXc. . . Kurtis Blow, the first rapper to sign with a major single and have a certified gold record . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZDUEilS5M4