LAPL Blog
Keith Chaffee, Librarian, Collection Development
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Music Memories: Happy Birthday, Tony Bennett!
On August 3, 1926, Tony Bennett was born. Bennett began his musical career 70 years ago as a pop star, later becoming one of the finest singers of standards from the Great American Songbook.
A Week to Remember: Beatrix Potter
On July 28, 1866, Beatrix Potter was born. Potter was the author and illustrator of The Tale of Peter Rabbit and more than 20 other animal stories for children, books which remain popular more than a century after they were written.
Music Memories: Rush
On July 29, 1953, Geddy Lee was born. Lee was the lead vocalist, bass player, and keyboardist for the Canadian band Rush, a staple of rock radio.
A Week to Remember: Happy Birthday, Cormac McCarthy!
On July 20, 1933, Cormac McCarthy was born. McCarthy’s novels are stark tales of morality, usually set in a bleakly amoral world.
Music Memories: Jimmy Scott
On July 17, 1925, Jimmy Scott was born. Scott was a jazz singer with two distinct career phases. His music in the 1940s and 1950s sat on the boundary of jazz and R&B; when he reappeared in the 1990s and 2000s, it was as a singer of traditional jazz ballads.
A Week to Remember: Lizzie Borden
On July 19, 1860, Lizzie Borden was born. Borden was the defendant in one of the 19th century’s most notorious murder trials, acquitted of the murders of her father and stepmother. The case was so widely discussed that it became a children’s jump-rope rhyme:
A Week to Remember: The Scopes Trial
On July 10, 1925, the trial of Tennessee high school teacher John T. Scopes began in Dayton, Tennessee. Scopes was charged with teaching the theory of evolution, in violation of a recently passed state law.
Music Memories: Ottorino Respighi
On July 9, 1879, Ottorino Respighi was born. Respighi was a composer known for his colorful orchestrations and his adaptations of music from other composers and other eras.
A Week to Remember: Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass
On July 4, 1855, the first edition of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was published. Controversial at the time, Leaves of Grass is now acknowledged as one of the most important American collections of poetry.
Music Memories: Frank Loesser
On June 29, 1910, Frank Loesser was born. From the 1930s to the early 1960s, Loesser was one of America’s finest songwriters.