Curated playlist
Mercury Records artists
- David BowieDavid Bowie died two days after releasing his final album. He planned Blackstar as a parting gift while privately dying.
- U2U2, the Irish rock band, began with a note pinned to a school notice board in Dublin in 1976. Larry Mullen Jr., then a 14-year-old pupil at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, was looking for musicians for a new band. The first practice…
- Elton JohnElton John sang "Candle in the Wind 1997" live only once, at Princess Diana's funeral. He wrote it days before.
- Little RichardLittle Richard walked away from rock and roll to study theology. A fireball over Sydney in 1957 shook him.
- Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney traded a trumpet for a guitar and wrote his first song on it. His father had given him the trumpet.
- Chuck BerryChuck Berry was buried with a cherry-red guitar bolted inside his coffin lid. The rock and roll pioneer died in 2017.
- Peter GabrielOn the 19th of June 1971, Peter Gabriel took a running jump off a stage and expected the audience to catch him. They moved aside instead. He landed on the floor and broke his ankle, then performed the next several Genesis shows with a…
- Jerry Lee LewisJerry Lee Lewis feared his own hit song was blasphemous.
- Kiss (band)Kiss played its first show on the 30th of January 1973 at the Popcorn Club in Queens, New York. Fewer than ten people were in the audience. The band was paid $50 for two sets, after Gene Simmons cold-called the venue and talked the owners…
- Bee GeesA broken record forced the Bee Gees to sing live at a Manchester cinema in 1957.
- Rush (band)Rush, the Canadian rock band, collected CA$25 for its first public concert in September 1968. The stage was a youth centre called the Coff-Inn, tucked into the basement of St. Theodore of Canterbury Anglican Church in Toronto. When the…
- Dolly PartonDolly Parton refused to give Elvis Presley half the publishing rights to "I Will Always Love You."
- Ringo StarrRingo Starr's first drum was a cotton bobbin used to tap the cabinets by his hospital bed.
- Roy OrbisonRoy Orbison died weeks after finishing the best-selling album of his career. He never heard Mystery Girl released.
- Reba McEntireReba McEntire, later known as the Queen of Country, nearly missed her Grand Ole Opry debut on the 17th of September 1977. A guard at the gate overlooked her name on the list of performers. Her parents and her older sister Alice had driven…
- Rod StewartRod Stewart, the British singer with the raspy voice, stood on Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro on the 31st of December 1994 and sang to 3.5 million people. Nobody paid to get in. That crowd earned him an entry in the Guinness Book of…
- Zayn MalikZayn Malik was 17 years old and did not want to go to his X Factor audition in Manchester. On the morning of the tryout in 2010, nerves had won, and he wanted to stay in bed. His mother got him up and talked him into going. Years later he…
- Robert PlantRobert Plant, the English singer born on the 20th of August 1948, first rehearsed stardom behind the curtains of his family home at Christmas. He was ten years old, and he was trying to be Elvis. Decades later, on the Denton talk show in…
- KraftwerkKraftwerk did not own a computer when recording Computer World. The 1981 album was about computers.
- Jon Bon JoviJon Bon Jovi, born John Francis Bongiovi Jr. on the 2nd of March 1962, has played more than 3,000 concerts with his band in over 50 countries. The crowds added up to more than 35 million fans. He is an American singer, songwriter and…
- Iggy AzaleaIggy Azalea, born Amethyst Amelia Kelly on the 7th of June 1990, told her parents in 2006 that she was going to the United States on a holiday with a friend. She was shortly before her sixteenth birthday. The holiday never ended. She…
- Kurtis BlowIn 1979, Harlem's Kurtis Blow became the first rapper signed by a major label.
- Carl PerkinsCarl Perkins learned guitar on a cigar box and a broomstick. He later wrote "Blue Suede Shoes" for Sun Records.
- Bryan AdamsIn 1990, Bryan Adams sat down with two collaborators, Robert John "Mutt" Lange and Michael Kamen, and finished a song in a single 45-minute session. The song was "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You," and it went on to reach number one in at…
- 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…
- MorrisseySteven Patrick Morrissey, known to the world as Morrissey, once led a tour of Manchester for the Oxford Road Show in 1985. Late in that tour he reached the secondary school he had attended. He described it in harsh terms and closed with a…