I Don’t Believe In Astrology, but…

75 years ago this month, in a span of seven days, five recording artists were born in the USA.  Three came from the South and two from Brooklyn.  On January 18, 1941, David Ruffin, one of the great voices of The Temptations, was born in Mississippi.  David was the man behind such Temptations hits as “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg”, “I Wish It Would Rain”, and “My Girl”.  He also had a good solo career after leaving the band, with hits such as “My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me)” and “Walk Away From Love”.  Unfortunately, he battled addiction his whole life and passed away in 1991 at the age of 50.  On the same day David was born in Mississippi, Bobby Goldsboro was born in Florida.  Bobby was known for pop hits that you either loved or hated, such at “See The Funny Little Clown” and “Honey”.                                                                                                   Three days later, on January 21, 1941, Richie Havens was born in Brooklyn.  Richie had a solid career in the 60’s on the folk music circuit, but saw his career explode in 1969, when he was the opening act of the Woodstock Festival.  Richie had two songs included in the “Woodstock” film, “Handsome Johnny” and “Freedom”.  The latter song was improvised on the spot.  From Wikipedia:  

His Woodstock appearance in 1969 catapulted him into stardom and was a major turning point in his career.[2] As the festival’s first performer, he held the crowd for nearly three hours. In part, Havens was told to continue playing, because many artists scheduled to perform after him were delayed in reaching the festival location with highways at a virtual standstill. He was called back for several encores. Having run out of tunes, he improvised a song based on the old spiritual “Motherless Child” that became “Freedom”. In an interview with Cliff Smith, for Music-Room, he explained: “I’d already played every song I knew and I was stalling, asking for more guitar and mic, trying to think of something else to play – and then it just came to me…The establishment was foolish enough to give us all this freedom and we used it in every way we could.”                           Richie passed away in 2013.                                                                                                                Three days later, on January 24, 1941, Aaron Neville was born in New Orleans.  Aaron has had a long solo career, with hits such as “Tell It Like It Is”, as well as being part of The Neville Brothers.  Our final artist was born in Brooklyn, three days after Richie Havens was born there (I’m assuming different hospitals), Neil Diamond.  From Wikipedia:       Diamond has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the world’s best-selling artists of all time.[1] He is the third most successful adult contemporary artist on the Billboard charts behind Elton John and one-time duet partner Barbra Streisand.[2] His songs have been covered internationally by many performers from various musical genres.                                                                                                                                           So there you have it, five very different artists, responsible for some of the greatest music of the 20th Century, all born in a week’s time.                                                                                             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrjJeP1GGxY