Here are 34 Interesting Musicians facts.
1-5 Musicians Facts
1. Approximately 10,000 attended the funeral of Hawaiian musician, Israel Kamakawiwoʻole. – Source
2. Tom Lehrer, a musician known for biting satire stopped performing because “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize.” – Source
3. Jesse Rae, a Scottish funk musician dresses as a Scottish Centurion, and his career ended largely due to his mistrust of the English. – Source
4. Joseph Haydn, a classical music composer, wrote a musical piece in which the musicians gradually leave the stage until 2 violins are left in the end. – Source
5. The first streaming music service started in 1897. Users in New York could pick up their phones and connect to the Telharmonium, a central hub that would pipe music being played live by two musicians playing 24 hours a day. – Source
6-10 Musicians Facts
6. Musician Mark Mothersbaugh described work on Pee Wee’s Playhouse as “Really chaotic. They’d send tape on Tuesday, I’d write music on Wednesday, record music on Thursday and we’d watch it on TV Saturday. Instead of writing an album once a year I was writing an album’s worth of music in one week.” – Source
7. Musician Jack Johnson donated 100% of his 2008 tour profits to charity. His tours since have donated to and supported many environmental charities local to where the band plays. – Source
8. Legendary jazz musician Charles Mingus wrote a little how-to essay on teaching cats to use the toilet. – Source
9. Hitler loved Irish music and invited an Irish musician to play for him in Berlin in 1936. However there was no room for the musician to sit, so Hitler ordered an S.S member on his hands and knees to act as a chair so the Irishman could perform his music. – Source
10. Sujeet Desai is an accomplished musician born with Down syndrome. Sujeet plays seven instruments and graduated from high School with honors from the Berkshire Hills Music Academy in Massachusetts. He travels worldwide to do inspirational solo music performances and self-advocacy workshops. – Source
11-15 Musicians Facts
11. The Tommy Johnson character in O Brother Where Art Thou was based on a real musician of the same name, who claimed to have sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads in exchange for his mastery of the guitar. – Source
12. On the British series The Nightly Show, musician John Legend sang some of chef Gordon Ramsay’s greatest insults, including “How the f*ck did you burn ice cream?” and “You put so much oil in this, the U.S. wanted to invade the f*cking plate.” – Source
13. In 2015, 1000 musicians played ‘learn to fly’ by foo fighters together in the town of Cesena, Italy in an effort to get the band to come to their town and play. The band responded and came to the town to play a 27-song-set, starting off with ‘learn to fly’. – Source
14. Daryl Davis, a black musician, was able to interview and even befriend many Ku Klux Klan members, and was able to get some of them to leave the Klan. – Source
15. In 1998, musician David Bowie launched a dial-up Internet Service Provider known as “BowieNet”, which came with its own email and exclusive content. The service lasted till 2006. – Source
16-20 Musicians Facts
16. Musician Billy Squier effectively derailed his career by releasing a video for the song ‘Rock Me Tonite’ that had him dancing around in a pink shirt. – Source
17. Michael Jackson composed songs despite not playing any instruments. He would build each element of a track with his voice, so pitch perfect that studio musicians could match chords to his singing. – Source
18. The UK Parliament has a cross-party rock band consisting of 4 MPs called “MP4” and were the first musicians to perform in the 900-year-old Westminster Hall. – Source
19. Jimi Hendrix and James Brown were both backing musicians for Little Richard early in their careers. When Richard couldn’t make some shows because of a scheduling conflict, James Brown would fill in by impersonating Richard. – Source
20. After the death of musician Gram Parsons, his manager and assistant stole his body from an airport and an unsuspecting patrolman helped them load it into a hearse. They then took the body to Joshua Tree National Park, covered it with gasoline, and set it on fire. – Source
You know that the world famous novel Moby-d*ck doesn’t have anything to do with penises?
I get it. Well, I guess this form of censorship makes a novel now unappropriated language …
#25 – There is absolutely nothing in the linked source to suggest that Percy Sledge improvised the lyrics of the song *during* its recording. In fact, it says quite the opposite, that the tune came out of improvisation, and the lyrics were written ‘that night’. After the original song had been written, suggestions were made by a local DJ which led to the changing of some of the lyrics. Sledge himself says that the story happened differently, and he had improvised some of the lyrics for a DJ at a show, but the final song was changed and improved before being written out. There is also nothing in the source that suggest that his session musicians “assumed” anything at all about the lyrics.