Bettye Lavette

Happy birthday to Bettye Lavette, born this day in 1946! Here's a 1965 TV performance of "Let Me Down Easy."

Jean Knight

Happy birthday to Jean Knight, born this day in 1943! I don't usually like to post fragments of songs, but this 73-second snippet of her performing "Mr. Big Stuff" on TV in 1972 is all there is, and so be it.

Stéphane Grappelli

Happy birthday to the late Stéphane Grappelli, born this day in 1908! Here's a vintage performance with the Quintette du Hot Club du France, also including Django Reinhardt, whose birthday was the 23rd.

Etta James

Happy birthday to Etta James, born this day in 1938! Here she is, circa 1980, singing "Take It to the Limit" on TV.

Antonio Carlos Jobim

Happy birthday to the late Antonio Carlos Jobim, born this day in 1927. Here's a vintage performance with Elis Regina singing his "Aguas de Marco."

Stig Anderson

Happy birthday to the late Stikkan "Stig" Anderson, born this day in 1931. Here's ABBA's video for "Hovas Vittne," the song they recorded in his honor in 1981 (he was their manager). Note the "truck-driver's gear-change" key-change at 2:15 or so--the lyrics are apparently about that!

Klaus Nomi

Happy birthday to the late Klaus Nomi, born this day in 1944. Here's a familiar but fantastic clip of him singing "Total Eclipse" in Urgh! A Music War, 1981.

Zeke Carey

Happy birthday to the late Zeke Carey, born this day in 1933. Here he is as one of the Flamingos, singing "Jump Children" in 1959.

Anita Pointer

Happy birthday to Anita Pointer, born this day in 1948! Here she is with the Pointer Sisters doing a live-on-TV performance of "Yes We Can Can" in 1974.

Sam Cooke

Happy birthday to the late Sam Cooke, born this day in 1931! Here's a 1960 TV performance of "Mary Mary Lou"--it ain't the Harlem Square Club, but it's neat to watch him make the most of the situation.

Malcolm McLaren

Happy birthday to Malcolm McLaren, born this day in 1946. Here's the video for the excellent mbaqanga ripoff "Double Dutch," from his 1982-ish album Duck Rock.

Daniel Johnston

Happy birthday to Daniel Johnston, born this day in 1961. Here's a fairly recent live-in-store performance of "Casper the Friendly Ghost."

the time is overdue

Well, it's not Stevie Wonder's birthday, but how could I not post this video today?

Chan Marshall

Happy birthday to Chan Marshall, born this day in 1972! Here's the video for Cat Power's "Cross Bones Style," directed in 1998 by Brett Vapnek.

Edwin Starr

Happy birthday to the late Edwin Starr, born this day in 1942. After he had a huge hit with "War," he followed it up with this near-total soundalike, "Stop the War Now" (1970)... it's a homemade still-photo video, but a great song (later covered by Raw Sex, Pure Energy during the Falklands war!).

Richie Havens

Happy birthday to Richie Havens, born this day in 1941! Here's a live performance of Jefferson Airplane's "High Flyin' Bird" from British TV in 1969--that "moving shadow" trick with the light on him isn't something one sees very often.

Wendy James

Happy birthday to Wendy James, born this day in 1966. Here's the video for "London's Brilliant," from the very odd album that Elvis Costello wrote for her, Now Ain't the Time for Your Tears. Bears a certain resemblance to a handful of Clash songs, but at least it namechecks Strummer and Jones...

William Powell

Happy birthday to the late William Powell, born this day in 1942. Here's a super-hot 1974 live clip where he's singing "For the Love of Money" with the O'Jays.

?uestlove

Happy birthday to Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson, born this day in 1971. Go check out this unbelievable circa-1995 freestyle by Black Thought with ?uestlove beatboxing and feeding him cues.

Tina O'Neill

Happy birthday to Tina O'Neill, born this day in 1969! Here she is playing drums with We've Got a Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It, doing "Love Is the Slug" live on British TV in 1986.

Ron Townson

Happy birthday to the late Ron Townson of the 5th Dimension, born this day in 1933. He didn't take many lead vocals on their hits, and both the sound and video in this clip are pretty dodgy, but the sight of the 5th Dimension doing Maxwell Anderson & Kurt Weill's "Lost in the Stars" in 1971... well, I couldn't pass it up.