Today is the birthday
… of Willie McCovey. “Stretch,” a baseball hall-of-famer, is 72.
TOP LEFT-HANDED HOME RUN HITTER IN N.L.
HISTORY WITH 521. SECOND ONLY TO LOU GEHRIG
WITH 18 CAREER GRAND SLAMS. LED N.L. IN HOMERS
THREE TIMES AND RBI’S TWICE. N.L. ROOKIE OF
YEAR IN 1959, MVP IN 1969 AND COMEBACK PLAYER
OF THE YEAR IN ’77. TEAMED WITH WILLIE MAYS
FOR AWESOME 1-2 PUNCH IN GIANTS’ LINEUP.
… of Scott McKenzie. So “if you’re going to San Francisco” wish Scott a happy 71st birthday.
… of Rod Stewart. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is 65.
Rod Stewart can be regarded as the rock generation’s heir to Sam Cooke. Like Cooke, Stewart delivers both romantic ballads and uptempo material with conviction and panache, and he sings in a warm, soulful rasp. A singer’s singer, Stewart seemed made to inhabit the spotlight.
… of William Sanderson. The character actor (E.B. Farnum in “Deadwood,” Larry on “Newhart,” Lippy in “Lonesome Dove”) is 62.
… of George Foreman. The boxing hall-of-famer and cook is 61. Foreman has five daughters and five sons and has named all of the sons George — George Jr., George III, George IV, George V, and George VI.
… of Patricia Mae Andrzejewski. Pat Benatar is 57. She won four consecutive Grammy awards in the 1980s for “Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female.”
… of Shawn Colvin. The singer is 54.
Shawn Colvin is one of the bright spots of the so-called “new folk movement” that began in the late ’80s. And though she grew out of the somewhat limited “woman with a guitar” school, she has managed to keep the form fresh with a diverse approach, avoiding the clichéd sentiments and all-too-often formulaic arrangements that have plagued the genre. In less than a decade of recording, Colvin has emerged as a songcraftsman with plenty of pop smarts, which has earned her a broad and loyal following.
Jim Croce was born on this date in 1943. Croce released just 11 singles, but “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” and “Time in a Bottle” made it to number one, the first in July 1973, the second posthumously after Croce died in a plane crash at age 30 in September of that year.
In the music industry, arguably the worst tragedy that can befall an artist is to die in their prime, when he or she is just beginning to break through to the mainstream and reach people on a national level. One such artist was Jim Croce, a songwriter with a knack for both upbeat, catchy singles and empathetic, melancholy ballads. Though Croce only recorded a few studio albums before an untimely plane crash, he continues to be remembered posthumously. Croce appealed to fans as a common man, and it was not a gimmick — he was a father and husband who went through a series of blue-collar jobs. And whether he used dry wit, gentle emotions, or sorrow, Croce sang with a rare form of honesty and power. Few artists have ever been able to pull off such down-to-earth storytelling as convincingly as he was.
Had he not smoked, the historian and author Stephen Ambrose might have been 74 today; he died in 2002.
… born in Lovington, Illinois (1936), who wrote several best-selling books about American history, including Band of Brothers (1992) and Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (1996).
He was a longtime professor, and many of the stories he wrote in his popular history books were ones he’d told over and over to his college students, trying hard to entertain them. He said, “There is nothing like standing before 50 students at 8:00 a.m. to start talking about an event that occurred 100 years ago, because the look on their faces is a challenge — ‘Let’s see you keep me awake.’ You learn what works and what doesn’t in a hurry.”
Dumas Malone was born in Coldwater, Michigan, on this date in 1892. Professor Malone, who died in 1986, was a historian, biographer and editor. His foremost work, the six volume Jefferson and His Time, is the most authoritative biography of the William and Mary alumnus who became author of the Declaration of Independence, third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia. The last volume, Sage of Monticello was completed when Malone was 89 years-old. Dumas Malone was presented the Medal of Freedom by President Reagan in 1983.