Music History Monday: 710 Ashbury Street, San Francisco, California

Music History Monday: 710 Ashbury Street, San Francisco, California

Author: Robert Greenberg October 2, 2023 Duration: 17:52

Before we get to the central topic of today’s post – that being a particular address in San Francisco – we would wish a most happy birthday to someone we only know by his nickname.  Please: no looking ahead and peeking! Today we wish a happy 71st birthday to the English singer, songwriter, bassist, and actor Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, CBE (“Commander of the Order of the British Empire”).  He was born at Sir G. B. Hunter Memorial Hospital in Wallsend, Northumberland, England.   He grew up near the shipyards there in Wallsend, which itself is located just outside of Newcastle-upon-Tyne on the east coast of northern England.  The eldest of four kids, his mother Audrey was a hairdresser and his father Ernest a milkman. Our birthday boy took up the guitar as a child, but as music didn’t pay the rent, he worked as a bus conductor, a construction worker, a tax officer and, after having attended the Northern County College of Education (today known as Northumbrian University) from 1971 to 1974, he received a teaching credential.  He went on to teach for two years at St. Paul’s School in Cramlington, some 9 miles north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.   His […]

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Every week, Music History Monday arrives with the kind of curiosity that turns dates on a calendar into doorways. Hosted by composer and historian Robert Greenberg, this podcast digs into the stories that happened *around* the music, finding the human moments-sometimes profound, sometimes scandalous, always fascinating-tied to a specific Monday. Greenberg approaches his subjects not as distant icons but as the complicated, brilliant, and often messy people they were, which makes each episode feel like a conversation rather than a lecture. You’ll hear about pivotal premieres, bitter rivalries, unexpected inspirations, and the sheer luck or misfortune that shaped the pieces we know today. The tone is erudite but never dry, packed with context and delivered with a wit that respects the art without putting it on a sterile pedestal. It’s for anyone who loves a good story and suspects that the history behind a symphony or a sonata is just as compelling as the notes themselves. Tune in each Monday with Robert Greenberg to connect the dots between a day in history and the soundtrack it inspired.
Author: Language: en-us Episodes: 50

Music History Monday
Podcast Episodes
Music History Monday: On the Spectrum [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 25:59
We mark the birth on September 4, 1824 – 199 years ago today – of the composer and organist Josef Anton Bruckner, in the Austrian village of Ansfelden, which today is a suburb of the city of Linz. He died in the Austrian…