Music Trivia World's Random Facts Page 5Yet more random music trivia for your enjoyment.
*British composer Mike Batt was sued by the estate of John Cage for copyright infringement, after his composition "One Minute of Silence" was claimed to have been stolen from Cage's piece entitled 4'33". Although a plausible defense was offered, arguing that it was impossible to prove which one minute of silence was infringed upon, Batt ended up settling out of court, reportedly with a six-figure settlement. * Former Stone Roses singer Ian Brown was once sentenced to 60 days in jail after being arrested for a verbal row with a stewardess on a British Airlines flight. He claims he turned Muslim in jail, because that was the only way of getting food that would keep a person alive-the normal prison food was inedible. * Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan was once a calypso musician. Performing as The Charmer, he showed off his technical prowess on the violin on a couple of albums in the early '50s, until he joined the group he now leads and was asked to put aside his musical career. * Suzanne Vega is considered the ‘mother’ of the mp3. The creators of the mp3 format used her voice from the song “Tom’s Diner” as the model from which to analyze the different sound spectrums when creating the compression algorithm. *Speaking of Suzanne, Soul Coughing’s 1994 album “Ruby Vroom” was named after her and Mitchell Froom’s daughter. Vega asked that a slight change be made to the name. * One of the more obscure acts to be featured at both Live Aid and Live8 was Ultravox, who performed "Vienna" at both concerts. * After 9/11, Clear Channel Communications, the largest radio-station consortium in the U.S., issued a list of music that should perhaps not be aired. The list included "Disco Inferno" by The Trammps, "Great Balls Of Fire" by Jerry Lee Lewis, and "Jet Airliner" by The Steve Miller Band. *Usher holds the record for the most weeks spent at number one in a calendar year. In 2004 four different singles of his spent a total of 28 weeks at #1, for a total of 54% of 2004's chart weeks. *The Funk Brothers, studio band for Motown Records, during their heyday played on more number one hits than Elvis, The Beatles, The Beach Boys and The Rolling Stones combined. *Convicted pedophile Gary Glitter’s “Rock and Roll, Part 2” still continues to be played in sports arenas around the globe, although the NFL has specifically requested the song be no longer broadcast at any league games. *Led Zeppelin had two songs that they were sued for misappropriating either by Willie Dixon or his publishing company. Dixon received out-of-court settlements for both “Bring It On Home” and “Whole Lotta Love”. *Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys ran for mayor of San Francisco in 1979. He finished fourth out of ten possible candidates. Subsequently, the city passed a motion stating that candidates could only campaign under their given name. *Penn Jillette of the duo Penn & Teller is a recording artist. Together with his pal Kramer (not the Seinfeld one), they formed a band called Captain Howdy, and released two albums. *Kenny Roger’s concert rider explicitly disallows “Fast food, chain restaurant food” to be served to him or his entourage. No word on whether or not Kenny Rogers' Roasters food is exempt from this clause. *The oldest artist to hit #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 is Louis Armstrong in 1964 with "Hello, Dolly!" at the age of 62. The oldest woman with a #1 is Cher with "Believe" in 1999 at the age of 53. More random music trivia is on the way! This site is constantly updated, so check back often! Want to submit music trivia? Use the "Contact" form through the above link. Click to try this week's music trivia quiz!
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