This Week in Music History

Good morning! Hope the holidays have treated you well and that you’re looking forward to the impending New Year. Since the world didn’t end, we’ll be going about business as per usual, so here’s your weekly fix of music history for this Friday.

On this day back in 1983, Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys drowned in a marina at Marina Del Ray, Los Angeles. After a history of battling alcohol abuse, Wilson drowned during a diving excursion to recover items he had thrown overboard at the marina from his yacht three years earlier. Wilson had spent that afternoon drinking before his diving trip and sadly passed away shortly after his 39^th birthday. His body was buried at sea off the California coast by the U.S. Coast Guard on January 4^th, 1984. His song “Farewell My Friend” was played at the funeral. His life has inspired the upcoming 2013 biopic, The Drummer, with Aaron Eckhart playing Wilson.

On this day back in 1992 on a positive note, Paul Simon and Edie Brickell, his wife, had a son named Adrian Edward Simon.

Today also commemorates the birthday of the real Alex Chilton, the lead singer of the 60s group, The Box Tops and later a solo artist. The song titled after him by The Replacements is featured on their record Pleased To Meet Me, on which Chilton plays guitar for the song “Can’t Hardly Wait”. He passed away in 2010 due to a heart attack. He would have been 62 years old today.

By Alexandra Parker

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