Quickfacts: Music

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Vera Lynn, was born on 20 March 2017 and is still going strong. In 2000 she was named the Briton who best exemplified the spirit of the 20th century. In 2017 she released an album “Vera Lynn 100” to commemorate her centennial year. It was a number 3 hit, making her the oldest recording artist in the world and first centenarian performer to have an album in the charts. 

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Eric Clapton is a three-time inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a member of The Yardbirds, Cream and as a soloist. 

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Although The Yardbirds started as a blues cover band, their rave ups and innovations in feedback and distortion shaped such diverse genres as psychedelic rock, prog rock and punk. In addition to their six Top 40 songs, the Yardbirds will also be remembered as having produced the top three English blues-based guitarists of the Sixties: Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. 

The Yardbirds, 1966. 

From left: Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Chris Dreja, Keith Relf and Jim McCarty. 

Clapton had left the group in 1965 after being frustrated at the commercial direction it was taking. He left the same day as “For Your Love” was released, the group’s first major hit. 

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In 1996, Ringo Starr appeared in a Japanese advertisement for apple sauce, which is what "Ringo" means in Japanese. 

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Freddie Mercury’s real name was Frederick Bulsara. 

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Johnny Cash was originally diagnosed as having Parkinson's disease, which he announced to his audience after nearly collapsing on stage in Flint, Michigan, on October 25, 1997. Soon afterwards, his diagnosis was changed to neurodegenerative disease Shy–Drager syndrome, a form of multiple system atrophy, and Cash was told he had approximately 18 months to live. The diagnosis was later again altered to autonomic neuropathy associated with diabetes. Cash died of complications from diabetes at approximately on September 12, 2003, aged 71, less than four months after his wife. June Carter, had died from complications following heart-valve replacement surgery. 

At his last public performance, a concert on July 5, 2003, Cash read a statement about his late wife that he had written shortly before taking the stage: 

The spirit of June Carter overshadows me tonight with the love she had for me and the love I have for her. We connect somewhere between here and Heaven. She came down for a short visit, I guess, from Heaven to visit with me tonight to give me courage and inspiration like she always has. She's never been one for me except courage and inspiration. I thank God for June Carter. I love her with all my heart. 

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Johnny Cash continued to record until shortly before his death. One of his last albums contained a cover of "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails. Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails commented that he was initially skeptical about Cash's plan to cover "Hurt", but was later impressed and moved by the rendition. The video for "Hurt" received critical and popular acclaim, including a Grammy award. 

See/hear it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt1Pwfnh5pc

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By the way, remember that part in the Joachim Phoenix pic about Johnny Cash, Walk the Line, where cash proposes to June Carter on stage? That really did happen. Cash proposed in front of an audience of 7,000 people in London, Ontario on February 22, 1968 and they were married a few weeks later in Franklin, Kentucky; June was 39 and Johnny was 36.