Jan. 4: Michael Stipe, lead singer for R.E.M. "Man on the Moon," is 51 today.

Born in Decatur, Georgia in 1960, John Michael Stipe is recognized for his complex lyrics and R.E.M.s' visual image. His interests extend outside of the music industry. He runs his own film production companies, C-00 and Single Cell Pictures. Of course, he is best known for being the lead singer of R.E.M., the alternative rock band from Athens Georgia.

Because his father was in the military, the Stipe family moved frequently when he was growing up, including a stint in Germany. Stipe said he was greatly influenced by Patti Smith's Horses album, Television's Marquee Moon and Wire's Pink Flag. During high school in Illinois, he joined a punk cover band. After graduating, Stipe enrolled at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, as an art major, studying photography and painting.

While attending college, Stipe often visited the Wuxtry record shop where he met store clerk Peter Buck in 1980. The two became friends, started writing music together and decided to form a band. At the time, Stipe was already in a local band named Gangster. Stipe and Buck were joined by Bill Berry and Mike Mills and named themselves R.E.M., a name Stipe selected at random from a dictionary.

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All four members of R.E.M. dropped out of school in 1980 to focus on the band. The band's debut single, "Radio Free Europe," was a college radio success and the band signed to I.R.S. Records for the release of the Chronic Town EP one year later.

R.E.M. released its debut album Murmur in 1983, which was popular and acclaimed by critics. Stipe's vocals and lyrics received particular attention from listeners. Murmur went on to win the Rolling Stone Critics Poll Album of the Year over Michael Jackson's Thriller.

The band's second album, Reckoning, followed in 1984. Despite little mainstream airplay, Reckoning reached the Top 30 and with the darkly beautiful follow-up Fables of the Reconstruction, the band earned increasing MTV visibility for the videos "Can't Get There From Here" and "Driver 8."

In 1985, R.E.M. traveled to England to record Fables of the Reconstruction. After the album was released, relationships were tense within the band. Stipe said of the period, "I was well on my way to losing my mind." Stipe gained weight and his behavior became more eccentric; he shaved his hair into a monk's tonsure.

Following the tour to promote their album Green, in 1988 R.E.M. took an extended break, during which Stipe focused on his film company C-00, produced material for local discoveries like Vic Chesnutt and the Chickasaw Mudd Puppies, and lent guest vocals to a variety of projects.

R.E.M. returned in 1991 with the chart-topping Out of Time, which generated the Top Ten hits "Losing My Religion" and "Shiny Happy People"; Automatic for the People followed and as alternative rock took over the pop charts, the band  was widely acknowledged among the chief inspirations behind a generation of new artists.

While touring in support of 1995's Monster, Stipe was temporarily sidelined by hernia surgery; he returned to complete the tour and two years later, R.E.M. resurfaced with New Adventures in Hi-Fi.

With the success of the albums Out of Time and Automatic for the People in the early 1990s, R.E.M. became mainstream music stars. In 1994, with questions still being raised about his sexuality, Stipe described himself as "an equal opportunity letch," and said he did not define himself as gay, straight, or bisexual, but that he was attracted to and had relationships with both men and women. In 1995 he appeared on the cover of Out magazine. Stipe described himself as a "queer artist" in Time in 2001 and revealed that he had been in a relationship with "an amazing man" for three years at that point.

Stipe has thrived on collaborating with musical artists he admires. He had planned a collaboration with Nirvana's Kurt Cobain in 1994, partly in an attempt to lure Cobain away from his home and his drug addiction, but did not manage to compose or record anything before Cobain's death. Stipe was chosen as the godfather of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love's daughter, Frances Bean Cobain.

Stipe was once very close to fellow singer Natalie Merchant and has recorded a few songs with her, including one titled "Photograph" which appeared on a pro-choice benefit album titled Born to Choose and they have appeared live with Peter Gabriel singing Gabriel's single "Red Rain."

Stipe and Tori Amos became friends in the mid 1990s and recorded a duet in 1994 called "It Might Hurt a Bit" for the Don Juan DeMarco motion picture soundtrack. Both Stipe and Amos decided to keep it in the vaults, though it was later slated to appear on the Empire Records motion picture soundtrack in 1995. The song remains unreleased and unheard.

In 1998, Stipe published a collection called Two Times Intro: On the Road with Patti Smith.

Through some changes in musical style, the band continued its career into the next decade with mixed critical and commercial success. In 2006, Stipe released an EP that comprised six different cover versions of Joseph Arthur's "In The Sun" for the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief fund. One version, recorded in a collaboration with Coldplay's Chris Martin, reached number one on the Canadian Singles Chart.

Also in 2006, Stipe appeared on the song "Broken Promise" on the Placebo release Meds. Continuing his non-R.E.M. work in 2006, Stipe sang the song "L'Hôtel" on the tribute album to Serge Gainsbourg titled Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited and appeared on the song "Dancing on the Lip of a Volcano" on the New York Dolls album One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This.

In 2007, R.E.M. was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.


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Jan. 3: John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin "Stairway to Heaven," "Whole Lotta Love, is 65 today.

Born John Baldwin in 1946, in London, England, John Paul Jones was a founding members of the legendary group Led Zeppelin. He is remembered and revered as an innovative musician, arranger, and director.


In addition to bass and keyboards, Jones also plays guitar, koto, lap steel guitars, autoharp, violin, ukulele, sitar, cello, continuum and the three over-dubbed recorder parts heard on Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven."

He started playing piano at age six, learning from his father, Joe Baldwin, a pianist and arranger for big bands in the 1940s and 1950s. His mother was also in the music business which allowed the family to often perform together touring around England.


In 1960, when Jones was only 14 years old, he became a member of his father's dance band. A year later Jones formed his first band, and by the next year he began to travel and perform professionally.

Jones joined his first band, The Deltas, at 15. He then played bass for a jazz-rock London group, Jett Blacks. His first big break came in 1962 when he was hired by Jet Harris and Tony Meehan of the successful British group The Shadows for a two-year period. Shortly before hiring Jones, Harris and Meehan had just had a Number 1 hit with "Diamonds" - a track on which Jones' future bandmate Jimmy Page had played.

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In 1964, Jones began studio session work with Decca Records. From then until 1968, he played on hundreds of recording sessions. He soon expanded his studio work by playing keyboards, arranging and undertaking general studio direction, resulting in his services coming under much demand.

He worked with numerous artists including the Rolling Stones on Their Satanic Majesties Request, Herman's Hermits; Donovan, Jeff Beck, Françoise Hardy, Cat Stevens, Dusty Springfield, Rod Stewart, Shirley Bassey, Lulu and many other musicians. Jones has stated that, as a session musician, he was completing two and three sessions a day, six and seven days a week.

It was during his time as a session player that Jones adopted the stage name John Paul Jones. This name was suggested to him by a friend, Andrew Loog Oldham, who had seen a poster for the film John Paul Jones in France.


During his time as a session player, Jones often crossed paths with guitarist Jimmy Page, a fellow session veteran. In June 1966, Page joined The Yardbirds, and in 1967 Jones contributed to that band's Little Games album.

The following winter, during the sessions for Donovan's The Hurdy Gurdy Man, Jones expressed to Page a desire to be part of any projects the guitarist might be involved in, Later that year, The Yardbirds disbanded, leaving Page o complete some previously booked Yardbirds dates in Scandinavia. Jones, at the suggestion of his wife, enquired to Page about joining him on the tour, and Jones accepted.

Vocalist Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham joined the two to form a quartet. Initially dubbed the "New Yardbirds" for the Scandinavian dates, the band soon became known as Led Zeppelin.

In less than a dozen years, Jones, as a member of Zeppelin, made one movie, recorded nine full-length albums and completed close to 30 extensive tours.


The cultural impact of Led Zeppelin, both artistically and musically, is unquestioned. Jim Miller, editor of Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll, has said "On one level, Led Zeppelin represents the final flowering of the sixties' psychedelic ethic, which casts rock as passive sensory involvement."


Since Led Zeppelin dissolved in 1980 with the death of Bonham, Jones has collaborated with a number of artists, including R.E.M., Jars of Clay, Heart, Ben E. King, Peter Gabriel, Foo Fighters, Cinderella, The Mission, La Fura dels Baus, Brian Eno, the Butthole Surfers and Uncle Earl.
He appeared on several sessions and videos for Paul McCartney and was involved in the soundtrack of the film Give My Regards to Broad Street.

In 1985, Jones was asked by director Michael Winner to provide the soundtrack for the film, Scream for Help, with Jimmy Page appearing on two tracks. Jones provides vocals for two of the songs. He recorded and toured with singer Diamanda Galás on her 1994 album, The Sporting Life.  Jones set up his own recording studio called Sunday School, as well being involved in his daughter's (Jacinda Jones) singing career. He also recorded a solo debut album, Zooma.

During the 2000s he kept busy in both studio and live settings - producing many other artists. He also participated in the 2007 Led Zeppelin reunion show at O2 Arena, and in 2009 began playing with Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters) and Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) in the supergroup Them Crooked Vultures. The band released its debut album later that year.

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