Segment Features 

Very sad news to report: Bobby Hart, the songwriting dynamo who was half of the duo responsible for so many Monkees songs, has died. With partner Tommy Boyce, Bobby penned tracks like "I Wanna Be Free," "Last Train to Clarksville," the iconic 'Monkees' theme, and so many more, in addition to his solo songwriting career with hits like "Hurts So Bad" for Little Anthony & the Imperials. He will be remembered for his incredible talent and his innate spirituality.

Said Bobby: “It’s interesting and gratifying to look back these many years later and see that the Monkees are still with us, and they’re still being played somewhere...the records themselves have been staples that have gone on to sell for years and years. They still sound pretty fresh, and that we had an opportunity to do a lot of music that was married to visuals, and so, that in itself kind of seems to ensure that they’ll have a life of their own that’ll probably far outlast mine.”

You will be so missed, Bobby.

News In Music Sept. 12 thru  18

September 12, 1966 — The Monkees TV show makes its debut in the U.S. with four actors chosen to portray a pop band based on the Beatles. Although they begin as a fictional group, they become very real, eventually replacing studio musicians and making their own recordings.

That extra seated Monkee in the original sketch wasn’t meant to represent Tommy Boyce or Bobby Hart, though it’s easy to see why you’d wonder. Boyce and Hart were the songwriting engine behind many of The Monkees’ biggest hits—like “Last Train to Clarksville” and “I Wanna Be Free”—but they weren’t official members of the band2.

They did, however, play a pivotal role in shaping the sound and even sang lead vocals on the pilot’s soundtrack before the show was cast. Later, in a fascinating twist of Monkee history, they teamed up with Micky Dolenz and Davy Jones in the 1970s to form a touring group called Dolenz, Jones, Boyce & Hart.

September 13, 1960 — The U.S. broadcast regulator, the Federal Communications Commission,  bans "payola," the controversial practice of paying disc jockeys for playing songs. The decision is the result of a major scandal involving top air personalities, including Dick Clark and Alan Freed, that led to Congressional hearings. Many in the music industry consider the events an attack on rock 'n' roll pushed by the big music publishing firm ASCAP to help it to maintain its dominance over smaller competitor BMI, which has a near-monopoly in the youth music market.

September 14, 1955 — Little Richard records "Tutti-Frutti" in New Orleans for Specialty Records. Originally an obscene ditty called "Tutti-Frutti, Good Booty" that Richard wrote and performed in nightclubs around the southern U.S., a female lyricist at the label rewrites it to take out the prurient references. The record, Richard's first for the Los Angeles company, reaches #17 pop, #2 R&B and helps take him from a struggling southern U.S. R&B artist to the pinnacle of fame. It is enshrined in the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Rolling Stone's 2010 list of  the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time at #43, and the Record Industry Association of America's top 365 Songs of the Century at #130.



September 15, 1915 — Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton's "Jelly Roll Blues" is published in Chicago, apparently the first published jazz arrangement. (Morton would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 as an early influence on rock.)




September 17, 1931 — RCA Victor unveils its new invention, the 33⅓ r.p.m. long-playing record, at the Savoy Plaza Hotel in New York. (See RCA's magazine ad at bottom) The company badly overprices the record players themselves, however, leaving the new format dormant until Columbia revives it in 1948.

September 18, 1899 — The U.S. Copyright Office receives Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag." It is not the first rag (short for ragged rhythm, or syncopation), nor even Joplin's first, but it becomes the genre's biggest hit, sparking a nationwide ragtime craze. By the end of World War I, young pianists like James P. Johnson and Jelly Roll Morton (see item above) are studying and performing Joplin's works, but introduce rhythmic drive, showmanship, and improvisation. New styles derived from ragtime are stride piano and jazz, which eclipse it and, with boogie woogie, become precursors to swing, rhythm & blues, and rock 'n' roll.
                                 1948 — Muddy Waters' debut 78 r.p.m. single , "I feel Like Going Home," reaches #11 on the R&B chart. (Born McKinley Morganfield, he gets his nickname as a child while playing in a muddy creek near the Mississippi River.)

Sources:
Eight Days a Week (Ron Smith)
On This Day in Black Music History (Jay Warner)
Chronology of American Popular Music, 1900-2000 (Frank Hoffman)
calendar.songfacts.com
onthisday.com/music