Died On This Date (October 5, 2011) Steve Jobs / Changed How We Consume Music

Steve Jobs
February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011

It could be argued that Steve Jobs made the biggest impact on the music industry since Thomas Edison invented the phonograph.  Through Apple Inc., the company he co-founded with Steve Wozniak and Mike Markkula in 1976, Jobs produced a line of computer products that paved the way for personal computing, personal entertainment, and communications as we now know it today.  As far back as the late ’70s, Apple’s consumer products successfully found their markets – their early Apple II Series was one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers in history.   Today, the company boasts over 300 retail outlets across the globe and is the largest publicly traded company in the world by market.  In November of 2001, Apple announced the release of the iPod, a small device that could literally allow you to carry your entire CD collection in your pocket – or at least the digital files that were encoded on the discs. Audiobooks, games and movies soon followed. With Apple’s  iTunes software, music lovers could now transfer the music files from a CD or download music files from the internet onto their iPods and carry them with them like earlier generations did with the walkman and discman – only this time, it was possible to transport upwards of 20,000 songs!  And through the iTunes store, consumers could now purchase not only full albums in music files, but also individual songs, leading to a shakeup throughout the music industry as many labels and artists began to focus more on the hit single and less on the nurturing of long-term music careers.  In less than 10 years, Apple sold over 297,000,000 iPods (of various models).  This of course, led to other popular devices like the iPhone and iPad which also offered the same personal music experience and more.  The impact that Apple, the iPod, and iTunes made on pop culture was so massive that when the Beatles – who incidentally shared the same corporate name as Apple but only after years of legal back-and-forth, finally announced that their 40-year-old music would be available through iTunes in 2010, the idea that you could now carry your entire Beatles collection in your pocket was, well, “more popular than Jesus.”  Unfortunately, fortune can’t conquer everything as it became strikingly evident when pictures and video of Jobs began to pop up in 2004.  In middle of that year, Jobs announced to his staff that he was suffering from pancreatic cancer.  He continued to run the company head and be its main spokesman until he took what everyone hoped would be a temporary leave of absence in January of 2009.  After several procedures including a liver transplant, Jobs made his leave permanent in January of 2011, but was still on hand for the company’s unveiling of the highly anticipated iPad 2 and iCloud which was intended to revolutionize the way we store computer files and data.  On August 24, 2011, Steve Jobs officially resigned from Apple Inc., and on October 2, 2011, it was announced that he passed away peacefully with his family at his side.  He was 56.

Thanks to Craig Rosen at Number 1 Albums for the assist. 

What You Should Own

Click to find at iTunes



Died On This Date (October 5, 2011) Bert Jansch / Scottish Folk Great

Bert Jansch
November 3, 1943 – October 5, 2011

A highly influential singer-songwriter, Bert Jansch was one of the cornerstones of the British folk revival of the ’60s.  Cited as an influence by no less than Neil Young, Jimmy Page, and  Paul Simon, Jansch’s mark was made on younger generations as well as evident by praise from and collaborations with the likes of Devendra Banhart, Pete Doherty, Johnny Marr, and Beth Orton.  Considered a virtuoso of the acoustic guitar, he is often mentioned in the same breath as John Fahey or Leo Kottke.  Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Jansch launched his career in 1960 and began building a following by playing British folk clubs.  By the mid ’60s he was hitchhiking and busking across Europe.  He soon settled in London where he recorded his first album, Bert Jansch, which has since been included in the reference guide, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.   In 1968, Jansch co-founded Pentangle, a British folk supergroup of sorts that counted John Renbourn, Jacqui McShee, Danny Thompson, and Terry Cox among its members.  Perhaps a bit more jazz and baroque influenced than Jansch’s solo work, the group was one of the most popular of its kind during the late ’60s and early ’70s.   Pentangle disbanded in 1973 after which Jansch moved to a farm and took a bit of a break from the business.  He had regrouped by the end of the ’70s and continued on as a solo performer but reunited with Pentangle during the ’80s.  He continued on and off with the band for the better part of the next decade.  The 2000s found Jansch enjoying a renaissance of sorts, as evident by releases coming out on such hipster indie labels as Drag City and Cooking Vinyl.  His 2006 release for Drag City, The Black Swan, is considered one of his finest.  As reported by ABC News, Bert Jansch died of lung cancer on October 5, 2011.  He was 67.

Thanks to Harold Lepidus for the assist.

What You Should Own

Click to find at amazon.com

L.A. Turnaround (Remastered) - Bert Jansch