“It’s a Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘n’ Roll)” by AC/DC

If you think it’s easy doin’ one night stands
Try playin’ in a rock roll band.

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February 19, 1980 – Bon Scott dies

The legendary lead singer of AC/DC from 1973 to 1980, Ronald Belford ‘Bon’ Scott was one of Australia’s greatest ever larrikins. His vocal style was heavily inspired by Little Richard, albeit with more of a heavy metal feel. Scott also co-wrote most of the songs on the band’s first seven album with the Young brothers, Malcolm and Angus (who were also members of the band).

Scott died when he passed out after a night of heavy drinking, and was left to sleep it off in a friend’s car. His death was ruled to have been caused by acute alcohol poisoning. His body was embalmed, and sent home to his family in Fremantle, where he was cremated and buried in the family plot. After Scott’s death, the other members of AC/DC considered quitting. Eventually, they decided that Scott would have wanted them to continue and with the encouragement of Bon’s family, the band hired Brian Johnson as the new vocalist. Five months after Scott’s death, AC/DC finished the work they began with Scott and released their next album, “Back in Black” as a tribute to him with two tracks from the album, “Hells Bells” and “Back in Black”, dedicated to his memory. It is now the fourth best-selling album in history.

August 30, 1865 — Tchaikovsky’s Characteristic Dances is first performed in Pavlovsk

Composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky when he was only 24, “Characteristic Dances” was the first of his pieces to be publicly performed. Tchaikovsky himself was not present for the performance, which was conducted by Johann Strauss (itself an honour to a neophyte composer). However, he was pleased with both the fact of the performance and its reception.

Amazingly, “Characteristic Dances” has never been published, and exists today only in a modified form, as Tchaikovsky reworked it as “Dances of the Chambermaids” in his 1867 opera, “The Voyevoda”, and this is the form that they were recorded and popularised in. However, despite its obscurity, the public performance of his works was a turning point in the career of Tchaikovsky, and marked the first step to his becoming one of the best known of all Russian composers.

A clean-shaven man in his teens wearing a dress shirt, tie and dark jacket.
By Unknown. Uploaded to the English language Wikipedia in February 2007 by Jonyungk (log). – Music 33: Tchaikovsky: Early Portrait at Dartmouth College. Image is in the Bettmann collection (BE040514 and BJ001276 on http://pro.corbis.com). First known publication: 1953 postcard in Russia.[1] No copyrights were registered for this postcard., Public Domain, Link

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Let There Be Rock — AC/DC