Curated category
Decca Records artists
- Louis ArmstrongLouis Armstrong borrowed his stepfather's gun without permission on the 31st of December 1912, fired a blank into the air, and spent the night at New Orleans…
- David BowieDavid Bowie was born David Robert Jones on the 8th of January 1947 in Brixton, London, and he died two days after releasing his final album, on the 10th of…
- Benjamin BrittenBenjamin Britten was born on the 22nd of November 1913 in the fishing port of Lowestoft, Suffolk, and that birth date is no accident: it fell on the feast…
- Buddy HollyBuddy Holly was 22 years old when he died in a cornfield five miles northwest of Clear Lake, Iowa, on the 3rd of February 1959.
- Billie HolidayBillie Holiday, born Eleanora Fagan on the 7th of April, 1915, died with seventy cents in the bank. She had made a quarter of a million dollars in the three…
- Led ZeppelinLed Zeppelin sold somewhere between 200 and 300 million records, yet record executives at Atlantic Records signed them in November 1968 without ever having…
- Ella FitzgeraldElla Jane Fitzgerald walked onto the stage of the Apollo Theater on the 21st of November 1934, planning to dance. She was 17 years old, and she had recently…
- Duke EllingtonDuke Ellington wrote his first composition in the summer of 1914, working as a soda jerk at the Poodle Dog Cafe in Washington, D.C.
- Judy GarlandJudy Garland was born Frances Ethel Gumm on the 10th of June 1922, in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, to a family that lived and breathed performance.
- Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney wrote his first song, "I Lost My Little Girl", on a £15 Framus Zenith acoustic guitar he had traded for a nickel-plated trumpet his father…
- Chuck BerryChuck Berry was buried with a cherry-red Gibson ES-355 guitar bolted to the inside lid of his coffin. That image captures something essential about the man…
- Bing CrosbyBing Crosby's recording of "White Christmas" has sold over 50 million copies worldwide, making it the bestselling single of all time.
- Cat StevensCat Stevens sold more than 100 million records before he walked away from pop music entirely. Born Steven Demetre Georgiou on the 21st of July 1948, in the…
- John WilliamsJohn Williams played two notes for Steven Spielberg, alternating, low and ominous, and Spielberg laughed because he thought it was a joke. The film was Jaws.
- Dolly PartonDolly Rebecca Parton was born on the 19th of January 1946 in a one-room cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River in Pittman Center, Tennessee.
- London Symphony OrchestraThe London Symphony Orchestra was born out of an act of defiance. In May 1904, a group of musicians riding a train to a festival in the north of England made…
- Bert KaempfertBert Kaempfert arrived in the world on the 16th of October 1923 within the bustling port city of Hamburg. Locals immediately nicknamed him Fips, a moniker…
- Petula ClarkPetula Clark was performing for troops during the Blitz when she was still a child, her photo plastered on British Army tanks as a good-luck mascot.