Curated playlist
20th-century American male composers
- Louis ArmstrongLouis Armstrong fired a blank from his stepfather's gun and spent the night in juvenile court.
- Marvin GayeMotown boss Berry Gordy refused to release Marvin Gaye's What's Going On.
- Kurt WeillA song Kurt Weill wrote for a petty criminal in 1928 became a jazz standard.
- Igor StravinskyIgor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring caused a near-riot at its 1913 Paris premiere.
- Robert MitchumRobert Mitchum, the American film actor and singer, gave critic Roger Ebert a picture that never faded. Ebert named him his favorite movie star and praised his "deep, laconic voice and his long face and those famous weary eyes." Ebert saw…
- Arnold SchoenbergArnold Schoenberg died on Friday the 13th, fifteen minutes before midnight. He had long dreaded the number thirteen.
- Duke EllingtonDuke Ellington wrote his first piece while working as a soda jerk, before he could read music.
- Paul SimonPaul Simon, the American singer-songwriter and guitarist, nearly gave one of his best-known songs the wrong name. While writing music for the film The Graduate, he toyed with calling a new song "Mrs. Roosevelt." Art Garfunkel passed the…
- James BrownJames Brown pointed out band members' wrong notes with hand signals.
- George GershwinGeorge Gershwin's last words were "Fred Astaire." He collapsed at age 38 while working on a film score.
- John ColtraneA San Francisco congregation once worshipped John Coltrane as God incarnate.
- Miles DavisMiles Davis called jazz dead near the end of his life. He had spent five decades helping define it.
- Clint EastwoodPresident Reagan quoted Clint Eastwood's line "Go ahead, make my day" to Congress.
- Tom WaitsTom Waits accepted his place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011 with a joke at his own expense. “They say that I have no hits and I'm difficult to work with. And they say that like it's a bad thing!” The man who inducted him, Neil…
- Ezra PoundEzra Pound cut T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land by about half. Eliot called the edits proof of Pound's critical genius.
- John CageJohn Cage once had a pianist play nothing for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Audience noise became the music.
- Roger SessionsComposer Roger Sessions won a Pulitzer Prize for a whole career, then another for one concerto.
- Aaron CoplandComposer Aaron Copland planned one year of study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger but stayed three.
- Jerry Lee LewisJerry Lee Lewis feared his own hit song was blasphemous.
- Ray CharlesRay Charles Robinson, known to the world as Ray Charles, carried two nicknames that pulled in different directions. Contemporaries called him "The Genius." Among friends and fellow musicians, he preferred to be called "Brother Ray." Frank…
- John WilliamsSteven Spielberg laughed at John Williams's two-note Jaws theme, thinking it was a joke.
- J. J. AbramsJ. J. Abrams wrote his first film score at age 16 for a horror movie. The 1982 low-budget film was called Nightbeast.
- Billy JoelWilliam Martin Joel, better known as Billy Joel, left Hicksville High School in 1967 without a diploma. He had missed a crucial English exam after playing a late-night gig at a piano bar, where he earned money to help support his mother…
- Frank ZappaAs a boy, Frank Zappa spread mercury across his bedroom floor with a hammer. His father brought it home from work.
- Joe WalshJoe Walsh ran for President of the United States in 1980 on a platform of "Free Gas For Everyone." He promised that if he won, "Life's Been Good" would become the new national anthem. He was only 32, three years short of the 35 the office…
- James TaylorJames Taylor, the American singer-songwriter and guitarist, was the last act on the bill at the Newport Folk Festival on the 20th of July 1969. Thousands of fans had stayed through the rain just to hear him. He got through only 15 minutes.…
- Herb AlpertHerb Alpert is the only musician to top the Hot 100 as both a singer and an instrumentalist.
- Fred RogersFred Rogers weighed 143 pounds for most of his adult life, and he treated the number as a private message. In a 1998 Esquire profile, he told the writer Tom Junod, "the number 143 means 'I love you.' It takes one letter to say 'I' and four…
- Sean LennonSteve Jobs once brought Sean Lennon an early Macintosh for his ninth birthday.
- Michael GiacchinoMichael Giacchino used pieces of a real airplane fuselage as instruments on Lost.
- Quincy JonesQuincy Jones taped a sign to the entrance of a recording studio in 1985, and it read "Check Your Ego at the Door." Behind that door waited most of the major American recording artists of the day. Jones needed every one of them to work as…
- Joe RomersaJoe Romersa was a homeless 19-year-old drummer in New Jersey after a tragic early tour.
- Danny ElfmanDanny Elfman retired his rock band Oingo Boingo on Halloween night in 1995, after five sold-out concerts at the Universal Amphitheatre. The band had made him a name in Los Angeles new wave. Yet the career waiting for him afterward was…