James Brown

Happy birthday to the late James Brown, born this day in 1928 or 1933, depending on which source you believe! Here's a 1968 performance of "Mother Popcorn." Check out that dancing!

Mary Hopkin

Happy birthday to Mary Hopkin, born this day in 1952! Here's the 1968 video for "Goodbye," written for her by Paul McCartney.

Wendy James

Happy birthday to Wendy James, born this day in 1966! Here's her video for "London's Brilliant," written for her by Elvis Costello (with a little bit of help from "the bones of Strummer and Jones").

Lesley Gore

Happy birthday to Lesley Gore, born this day in 1946! Here's some early-'60s footage of her singing "You Don't Own Me" live. Wow!

Jo Callis

Happy birthday to Jo Callis, born this day in 1951! Here he is playing "(My Baby Does) Good Sculptures" with the Rezillos sometime around 1978.

Alec Empire

Happy birthday to Alec Empire, born this day in 1972! Here's the video for Atari Teenage Riot's "Destroy 2000 Years of Culture," from 1993 or so.

Judy Collins

Happy birthday to Judy Collins, born this day in 1939! Here she is, circa 1963, singing "Bob Dylan's Dream" on TV.

Big Maybelle

Happy birthday to the late Big Maybelle, born this day in 1924! I'm not exactly sure when this performance of "I Ain't Mad At You" was filmed--I'm guessing late '60s.

Willie Nelson

Happy birthday to Willie Nelson, born this day in 1933! Here's his 2005 performance of "Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other"--sorry about the video quality, but what a song!

Wayne Kramer

Happy birthday to Wayne Kramer, born this day in 1948! Here he is with the MC5 in, I think, 1970, playing "Ramblin' Rose."

Rev. Gary Davis

Happy birthday to the late Rev. Gary Davis, born this day in 1896! Here's a late-'60s clip of him playing "Feel Like Going On."

Michael Karoli

Happy birthday to the late Michael Karoli, born this day in 1948! Here's Can's video for "Mushroom," from 1971, which until just now I didn't know existed.

Duke Ellington

Happy birthday to the late Duke Ellington, born this day in 1899! Here he is with recent birthday girl Ella Fitzgerald on her TV show in 1968, doing "Don't Get Around Much Anymore."

Bill Drummond

Happy birthday to Bill Drummond, born this day in 1953! Here's the Timelords' 1989 video for "Doctorin' the Tardis." You know, from the previous generation of Dr. Who kitsch.

Jacques Dutronc

Happy birthday to Jacques Dutronc, born this day in 1943! Here's a performance of "La Fille du Pere Noël" that I'm going to guess is from the mid-'80s...

Kim Gordon

Happy birthday to Kim Gordon, born this day in 1953! Here's the 1990 video for Sonic Youth's "Kool Thing."

Ann Peebles

Happy birthday to Ann Peebles, born this day in 1947! Here's a late-'80s, stripped-down performance of "I Can't Stand the Rain." Lovely.

Pete Ham

Happy birthday to the late Pete Ham, born this day in 1947! Here he is with Badfinger, playing "Come and Get It" in 1970.

Sheena Easton

Happy birthday to Sheena Easton, born this day in 1959! Here's the amusingly embarrassing 1980 video for "9 to 5 (Morning Train)," which you have never truly heard until you've been woken up by people line-dancing to it at the crack of dawn every day for a week.