Today is the birthday
… of Scotty Moore. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is 79.
Scotty Moore served as Elvis Presley’s guitarist from 1954 to 1958, widely regarded as Presley’s golden years. Moore was a participant in the historic early sessions at Sun Recording Studio that mark the birth of rock and roll. It was on Monday, July 5th, 1954, that Presley, Moore and bassist Bill Black broke into bluesman Arthur Cruddup’s “That’s All Right” in a freewheeling style that brought together country and blues. They took a similarly approach to bluegrass legend Bill Monroe’s “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” With these spontaneous breakthroughs, conceived in the most innocent and intuitive way, both sides of Elvis Presley’s legendary first single—and the first new strains of rock and roll—were in the can. Notably, the single (Sun 209) was credited to “Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill.”
… of John Amos. Adm. Percy Fitzwallace (West Wing), Toby (Kunta Kinte as adult) and J.J.’s father (Good Times) is 71.
… of Cokie Roberts. The daughter of Hale and Lindy Boggs is 67.
… of Gerard Depardieu. The actor who has played more famous characters than even Charlton Heston (Cyrano De Bergerac, Jean de Florette, Christopher Columbus, Honoré de Balzac, Le Comte de Monte Cristo, Porthos, Auguste Rodin, Franco, Danton) is 62.
… of rhythm guitarist David Knopfler. The other Knopfler is 58. With his brother Mark (lead guitar), John Illsley (bass) and drummer Pick Withers, they formed Dire Straits in 1977. And 120 million albums later . . .
Sarah Vowell, an Okie from Muskogee, is 41 today.
Her essay collection Take the Cannoli: Stories from the New World (2000) starts with a piece called “Shooting Dad,” which begins: “If you were passing by the house where I grew up during my teenage years and it happened to be before Election Day, you wouldn’t have needed to come inside to see that it was a house divided. You could have looked at the Democratic campaign poster in the upstairs window and the Republican one in the downstairs window and seen our home for the Civil War battleground it was. I’m not saying who was the Democrat or who was the Republican — my father or I — but I will tell you that I have never subscribed to Guns & Ammo, that I did not plaster the family vehicle with National Rifle Association stickers, and that hunter’s orange was never my color.”
Marlene Dietrich was born on this date in 1901. Miss Dietrich was nominated for an Oscar for best actress for the 1930 film Morocco.