Orville Couch born 21 February 1935

Orville Couch (February 21, 1935 – May 26, 2002) was a talented American country music singer-songwriter who left a lasting impact on the genre. His music was characterized by his traditional country style, and he was known for his distinctive voice and guitar skills. Despite his early death, Couch's music continues to be celebrated by fans and historians of country music. 

Orville Couch was born in Ferris, Texas.. Among the radio shows on which obscure honky-tonk singer-songwriter Couch appeared were Saturday Night Shindig on WFAA, and The Big ‘D’ Jamboree on KRLD. The latter was an early 50s show, produced by Ed McLemore, where on the lines between country and rock ‘n’ roll were blurred. Other singers who were on the show in those years, included Johnny Cash, Tony Douglas, Lefty Frizzell, Carl Perkins, and Gene Vincent. 

                                    

In his later years, Couch would recall for interviewers how his appearance on this show, meant that his path crossed that of newcomer Elvis Presley. “Who the hell is Orville Couch? He owes me a buck.” The colourful language slipped uncustomarily off Elvis Presley’s palate as he stormed in the back door of the Big D. Jamboree. “I’m Orville Couch,” The country singer admitted, turning in his seat. Elvis straddled a chair in front of the man. “Two girls outside the door made me join your fan club,” he declared in outrage. 

Orville sputtered with laughter. Mood broken, the two men chatted until the emcee cued them. The two singers shared much in common. Both crossed the thin line between hillbilly and rock, but unlike Elvis, Orville preferred to stay to the Country side of the road. Elvis never did get that dollar back, but at least he could whip out the Official Orville Couch Fan Club Lifetime Membership if the circumstances ever called for it. * 

Over his career Orville has recorded on many labels including  Starday (1957), Dixie (1958), Mercury (1960), Custom  (1962), Vee Jay (1962-65), Action (1964), Le Cam (1965), Monument (1966), Tower (1968-69), Stonegate (1970) and Renegade (1976) as well as a few others along the way. He recorded one studio album for Vee Jay Records in 1963, in addition to appearing on radio shows. The album produced two singles on the Billboard country music charts: "Hello Trouble" at No. 5 and "Did I Miss You?" at No. 25. Another popular song was “Help Me Get My Cotton Gin’. 

I am unable to find any biographical information regarding Orville after his 1963 album except that much later on he formed a group called Cross Country. In 2001 Orville with Kathy La Folette and Barbara Thomas recorded a gospel album “In His Care” and in December that year Orville was diagnosed with a rare form of acute lymphoblastic leukemia which he succumbed to on May 26, 2002. 

(Very scarce information edited from Rocky-52, Facebook & *Elvis In Texas: The Undiscovered King 1954-1958 by Stanley Obert & Lori Torrance)

Bobby Jaspar born 20 February 1926

Bobby Jaspar (20 February 1926 – 28 February 1963) was a Belgian cool jazz and hard bop saxophonist, flautist and composer. 

Born in Liège, Belgium, Jaspar learned to play piano and clarinet at a young age. Later, he took up the alto and tenor saxophones, and at the age of 19 played the tenor saxophone in a Dixieland group with Toots Thielemans. In 1954 he started playing flute and after studying chemistry at university he turned to music as a profession. 

He worked with his own group the Bob Shots (recording 1947-1951) and with Henri Renaud (recording in 1951 and 1953) and Sasha Distel. He also performed with visiting Americans, including Jimmy Raney (1952), Chet Baker(1955), and Blossom Dearie (1956) whom he married., but divorced in 1957. 

                                   

Shortly after his arrival in New York in 1956, he became a member of J.J. Johnson’s quintet, which also included Elvin Jones. Jaspar left Johnson in 1957 and played briefly with Miles Davis. The following year he joined Donald Byrd’s quintet and from 1959 he worked as a freelance, mainly in New York, with Bill Evans, Raney, Chris Connor, the International Jazz Quartet, and others. 

Bobby with Blossom Dearie

In 1961/1962, Jaspar returned to Europe for a year for a series of concerts and a number of recordings, and formed a successful quintet with Belgian guitarist René Thomas. In some sessions, this was expanded to a powerful sextet with American trumpeter Chet Baker. One of those sessions, recorded in 1962, was released on record as Chet Is Back! 

Jaspar was considered one of the most talented European jazz musicians. His playing was influenced by Don Byas, Lester Young and Sony Rollins, but, as his recordings demonstrate, he developed his own expressive style, which led to his being highly respected by American musicians and critics alike. 

Bobby Jaspar died from a heart attack in New York City, on 28 February 1963 at age 37. He was one of the many great talents in the music who left us far too early and before his full potential could be competed.

(Edited from The New Grove Dictionary Of Jazz & Wikipedia) 

 

Bobby Rogers born 19 February 1940

Robert Edward Rogers (February 19, 1940 – March 3, 2013) was an American musician and tenor singer, best known as a founding member of Motown vocal group the Miracles from 1956 until his death. 

Robert Edward Rogers was born in Detroit, Michigan. Coincidentally, he was born on the same day and in the same hospital as Miracles lead singer Smokey Robinson. His mother, Lois, was a seamstress, and his father, Robert, worked in an auto factory. At the age of fifteen, Rogers joined Robinson’s group, The Five Chimes. The group changed its name to the Matadors. In 1959, he, along with Robinson, Claudette Rogers, Ronald White and Pete Moore, joined Berry Gordy’s new Motown label, with the new name, The Miracles. Known for their silky harmonies, snazzy threads and coolly coordinated dance steps onstage, they recorded for Berry Gordy Jr.’s Tamla label and became a stanchion of the Motown sound and Mr. Gordy’s recording empire. 

The 1960 single "Shop Around", with Smokey Robinson on lead, was Motown's first number one hit on the R&B singles chart, and the first big hit for the Miracles. The song was also Motown's first million selling hit single. The Miracles scored many more hits over the years including the #1 classics "Tears Of A Clown", and "Love Machine". In addition to his work in the Miracles, Rogers was a part-time Motown songwriter; his most notable composition, authored with bandmate Smokey Robinson, was The Temptations' first hit single, "The Way You Do the Things You Do". 

                                    

Rogers, who was known as the Miracles’ best dancer, shared writing credit with Mr. Robinson on several well-known songs, including “Going to a Go-Go,” “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” recorded by the Temptations, and “First I Look at the Purse,” a hit for the Contours in the 1960s and the J. Geils Band in 1970. 

His was the voice that dueted with Robinson on "You Really Got a Hold on Me," and it's the bubbly Rogers speaking voice that kicks off Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On," with the words "Hey, man, what's your name," "Everything is everything" and "It's just a groovy party man, I can dig it." .Bobby was also reputed to be the group's best dancer, and was responsible for many of the Miracles' onstage routines, until the arrival of famed Motown choreographer Cholly Atkins. After a name change to capitalize on Mr. Robinson’s stardom, they became Smokey Robinson and the Miracles in 1965. 

In 1972 Smokey Robinson left the Miracles with Billy Griffin as his official replacement. By 1976, the Miracles' relationship with Motown imploded during contract renewals after their contract with the label had expired. The group signed with Columbia in 1977 but with little success.  In 1980, Ronnie White and Bobby Rogers decided to carry on with the Miracles as a touring unit which carried on for three years as "The New Miracles". 

In late 2006, Bobby re-united with original Miracles members Smokey Robinson and Pete Moore for the group's first-ever extended interview on the Motown DVD release, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles: The Definitive Performances. In more recent years, Rogers was the main engine for the Miracles, trademarking the name and nurturing the legacy as he continued to perform throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe with members Dave Finley, Tee Turner, and Mark Scott in the final incarnation of The Miracles, which made him, as of 2009, the longest-serving original Miracles member. On March 20, 2009, Bobby was in Hollywood to be honored along with the other surviving original members of the Miracles as they received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

In 1987, Smokey Robinson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a solo artist. This proved a source of many protests from angry Miracles fans. After a 26-year wait, Bobby was automatically and retroactively inducted with the rest of the original Miracles, Marv Tarplin, Pete Moore, Claudette Robinson, and Ronnie White into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame alongside Miracles lead singer Smokey Robinson on April 14, 2012. 

In 1981, Rogers married Joan Hughes on his forty-first birthday. The wedding ceremony was officiated by the Reverend Cecil Franklin, the brother of Aretha Franklin at Detroit's historic New Bethel Baptist Church. Bobby and Joan had two children before their marriage, daughters Gina and Kimberly. In his final years, Rogers divided his residence between his primary dwelling in Southfield, Michigan, a northern suburb of Detroit, and a Beverly Hills, California pied-à-terre. 

Following a PBS appearance, Rogers was forced into retirement due to health issues. He died in his home on March 3, 2013, at the age of 73, due to complications of diabetes and dementia, two weeks after his 73rd birthday. Two years after his death Bobby was  inducted with the rest of the original Miracles into the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2015. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & The New York Times)

 

Esmeralda born 18 February 1927

Alma Graciela Haro Cabello (18 February 1927 – 25 August 1992), known professionally as Esmeralda, was a Mexican singer and actress. She was nicknamed La Versátil ("The Versatile") because she sang and recorded songs of various music genres, including cuplé, bolero, and tango. 

She was born María Graciela Herrejón Cabello in Morelia, Michoacán, to Ignacio Herrejón Ortiz and Amanda Cabello Morante. She later changed her name from Herrejón to Haro, her stepfather's surname. In 1942, María Graciela participated in a contest organized by radio station XEW to choose a new vocalist for the songs of Agustín Lara, but she lost to Lupita Alday. In 1944, she recorded her first single for Peerless Records with the songs "Qué buscan en la mujer" and "Puerto nuevo", and two years later she made her debut at radio station XEW. 

Esmeralda with Agustin

In 1948, Esmeralda introduced Agustín Lara's famous schottische "Madrid" on Mexican radio, and in that same year she recorded it for the Peerless label. Lara later commissioned the singer Ana María González to introduce the schottische in Spain. In the late 1940s, Esmeralda appeared in Mexican cinema. She sang in the film Coqueta (1949) and played the role of an attractive singer named Risaralda who sings the bolero "Flor de azalea" in Dos pesos dejada (1949), starring Joaquín Pardavé and Sara García. She also participated in the film Curvas peligrosas (1950). She married Juan Sánchez Azcona and had four children. 

                                  

                                    Here's "Core Ingrato" (Catari)

In the 1950s, Esmeralda signed a recording contract with Musart Records. For this label she made several recordings, including soundtrack albums of the Sara Montiel films El último cuplé (1957) and La violetera (1958); the album Música de papá y mamá (1958), with songs from revues; and the album Canciones de siempre (1959), with medleys of boleros by Mexican songwriters. She made several tours of Mexico, the United States, Cuba and Central America.and was considered one of the best interpreters of Agustín Lara. 

In the 1960s, she signed a contract to record albums with the Mexican label Rex, where she rerecorded songs she had recorded on the Peerless and Musart labels. Mexico's Consejo Nacional de Turismo appointed her ambassador of Mexican music and sent her abroad to represent the culture of Mexico in European countries such as Spain, France, Italy, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Russia. She also visited many Latin American countries in her tours. She divorced her husband in the early 80’s. 

She died in a Mexico City hospital on 25 August 1992 from complications of diabetes at the age of 65 years old.

(Edited from Wikipedia & New York Times)

 

Patricia Routledge born 17 February 1929

Dame Katherine Patricia Routledge (17 February 1929 – 3 October 2025) was an English actress and singer. She was best known for her role as Hyacinth Bucket in the BBC One comedy series Keeping Up Appearances (1990–1995), for which she was twice nominated for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Light Entertainment Performance. Her exceptional acting and singing talents, formidable intellect, and brilliant wit, took her from humble beginnings in Tranmere to TVs in living rooms across the land, via the West End and Broadway. 

Routledge, born in Higher Tranmere, Birkenhead, Merseyside, was the second child of Isaac Edgar Routledge, a gentleman’s outfitter and haberdasher, and his wife, Catherine (nee Perry). She was educated at Birkenhead high school and Liverpool University. She took a degree in English in 1951, intending to become a teacher. But music was also a passion. The full, rich contralto voice she developed had started at Saturday morning lessons with a Miss Sleigh at the upright Steinway piano she possessed for the rest of her life. 

Coronation Street

She played Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Liverpool Playhouse in 1952, signed up at the Bristol Old Vic theatre school in 1953 and went into rep in Guildford, Worthing and Windsor. Her London debut, at the Westminster theatre in 1954, was in a musical comedy rewrite of Sheridan’s The Duenna. That same year she made her first television appearance and she even popped up in five episodes of Coronation Street in 1961, as the cafe owner Sylvia Snape. 

          Here's "Ev'ry Time We Say Goodbye" from above album

                                    

Over the next 10 years she established her London profile in various revues and musicals, notably in the title role of an off-Broadway operetta spoof, Little Mary Sunshine, at the Comedy theatre in 1962, and in a 1963 musical version of John Vanbrugh’s The Relapse, Virtue in Danger, at the Mermaid (and the Strand). Lord Foppington in that musical was played by John Moffatt, and she paired with him again in the Mermaid’s delightful Noël Coward mélange Cowardy Custard (1972), co-devised and directed by Alan Strachan. 

She enjoyed another brilliant partnership with Alastair Sim in two Arthur Wing Pinero classics, The Magistrate (Chichester and the Cambridge theatre, 1969) and Dandy Dick (Chichester and the Garrick, 1973). Here again, opposite the visibly crushed and simpering Sim, she was a strong woman, to put it mildly. Before her TV ascendancy, she was a notable Dickensian in the mid-1970s as Mrs Micawber in David Copperfield, with David Yelland, Martin Jarvis and Arthur Lowe, and as the buxom dress designer Madame Mantalini in Nicholas Nickleby led by Nigel Havers. 

Patricia as "Kitty"

In the 80s she was a monologist not only for Bennett but also Victoria Wood in the series Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985-86), opening an address as a self-righteous spinster from Cheadle with, “Hello, I’m Kitty. I’ve given gallons of blood and I can’t stomach whelks.” And in the theatre she was an unforgettable member of the director Michael Blakemore’s crack ensemble in Michael Frayn’s Noises Off (1982), as Dotty Otley, the TV star and principal investor in the disastrous play-within-a-play. 

She then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company for just one Stratford-upon-Avon and London season (1984-85) as an embittered “hag in a Lancastrian flag”, Queen Margaret, in Antony Sher’s Richard III, a role in which, “a living ghost of battles long ago and lost … she stretched her remarkable range,” said Michael Ratcliffe in the Observer. Routledge won an Olivier award to sit alongside the Tony as the Old Lady (with one buttock) in Jonathan Miller’s revival of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide for the Old Vic and Scottish Opera in 1988. In this muted, stylish production, she showed her class in her solo turn and tango, I Am Easily Assimilated. 

Patricia as Nettie Fowler

As Nettie Fowler, she graced Nicholas Hytner’s landmark National Theatre revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel in 1992, leading the exuberant charge in June is Bustin’ Out All Over, stealing comically recuperative breathers, and giving glorious voice to You’ll Never Walk Alone while stripping the anthem of its well-worn banality.

Just before Carousel, she teamed with Bennett in a staging of three Talking Heads at the Comedy, and reanimated two of his early television plays in Office Suite at Chichester in 2007. She performed several other solo shows in her later years and made her last major stage appearance in 2014, aged 85, as a slightly subdued Lady Markby in Wilde’s An Ideal Husband – where else but in Chichester. 

She was appointed OBE in 1993, advanced to CBE in 2004, and was made a dame in 2017. Routledge settled in Chichester in 2000 and was a regular churchgoer at Chichester Cathedral. In 2020, she helped raise £10,000 towards the restoration of the cathedral's roof. She returned to her hometown on 17 January 2025 to receive Wirral’s highest honour – the Honorary Freedom of the Borough. Routledge died peacefully in her sleep on 3 October 2025, at the age of 96 at her home in Chichester. Her funeral was held at Chichester Cathedral on 5 November 2025, followed by cremation at Chichester Crematorium. 

(Edited from Michael Coveney obit @ The Guardian & Wikipedia)

 

Jack Rose born 16 February 1971

Jack Rose (February 16, 1971 – December 5, 2009) was an American guitarist originally from Virginia and later based in Philadelphia. Rose is best known for his solo acoustic guitar work. He was also a member of the noise/drone band Pelt. 

Rose was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Although there was no musical tradition in his family, he began playing while in high school. Exposed to classic blues and the art of finger-picking in his early teens, he formed a band called the Mice before moving to Richmond to study English at Virginia Commonwealth University. 

During the mid-1990s, Rose joined Pelt. In reaction to the period's produced "alternative" music, this Richmond group specialised in post-rock drones, on records such as Brown Cyclopedia (1995) and Pearls From the River (2003). They also "had a sideline in playing acoustic music for themselves," remembers Bill Kellum, who released Pelt and Rose on his label VHF Records: "Being from Virginia, it's pretty much ingrained in the culture." 

                                    

The turning point for Rose came when he heard John Fahey and Robbie Basho in the late 1990s, he said: "With the drone background that I already had, all of that came together and made sense. And I was listening to the composer Terry Riley, and I just made all these connections between different types of music." Realising that his technique did not match up to his ambitions, Rose did "some really intensive wood-shedding", says Kellum: "He got dramatically better in the course of a year. This would have been around 2001 or so." The following year, he released his first proper solo record, Red Horse, White Mule, followed in 2003 by Opium Musick. 

Rose's compositions were mostly for 6-string guitar, 12-string guitar, and Weissenborn-style lap steel guitar. He often employed open tunings when playing. He was compared to guitarists on the Takoma label from the 1960s, including American primitive guitarist John Fahey, Robbie Basho and former Vanguard recording artist and eventual touring partner Peter Walker. Rose cited Charley Patton, Blind Blake, John Fahey, Robbie Basho, Zia Mohiuddin Dagar and, in later years, Link Wray as influences.

It was on Kensington Blues that the Fahey influence came to the fore: "I noticed that on a song like the Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick, Fahey was accentuating the downbeat," Rose observed. "I realised that's where the jug is in jug-band music, that's where the rhythm is. So then I started playing on the downbeat – John Fahey, ragtime, the blues – all came into place." 

On recent records such as Dr Ragtime and his Pals, Rose began to mine that lost musical arcadia first mapped by Fahey, that period, in the 1900s, just before mass recording, when the oral tradition and localised, live performance still held sway. This was the moment when the great currents of 20th-century American culture began to flow together: Rose gave them new life and renewed vigour almost exactly a century later. The records were enhanced by the impact of Rose's many live performances. "Jack was hugely inspirational," recalls Rick Tomlinson (aka Voice of the Seven Woods), one of the new breed of British guitar-players to follow his example. "I've never been so transfixed by a solo guitar show as I was when Jack was playing." 

Rose left one final album, Luck in the Valley. He was interviewed by Arthur magazine during the recording: "I always think the last record I make is going to be the last one, but there is always something that comes along that piques my interest. Like the one I'm working on right now, I got back from the second session, and I was like, 'Wow, shit I've got a lot of work to do.'" 

Rose died of an apparent heart attack in Philadelphia, at the age of 38. He was buried at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. Luck In The Valley, Rose's final LP, was released posthumously on February 23, 2010, by Thrill Jockey Records. The record was the third installment of what Jack self-deprecatingly referred to as his "Ditch Trilogy." The album received an 8.2 on Pitchfork and featured Glenn Jones, Harmonica Dan, and pianist Hans Chew on most of the session. 

Rose's final recording, an electrified 4 song collaboration with D. Charles Speer & The Helix called Ragged and Right was released on June 15, 2010, as part of Thrill Jockey's singles club. The EP was recorded at Black Dirt Studios with Jason Meagher. 

(Edited from Jon Savage obit @ The Guardian & Wikipedia)

 

Nathan Davis born 15 February 1937

Nathan Davis (February 15, 1937 – April 8, 2018) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played the tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, and flute. He is known for his work with Eric Dolphy, Kenny Clarke, Ray Charles, Slide Hampton and Art Blakey. 

Born Nathan Tate Davis in Kansas City, he began to play trombone at the age of 17, but soon switched to reeds and became an accomplished player on flute, bass clarinet, tenor and soprano saxophones. His first noteworthy job was with the Jay McShann band, and a little later he became one of the few males who has ever played with the usually all-female International Sweethearts Of Rhythm. While studying at Kansas University, Davis lead a group with Carmell Jones; then army service in 1960 took him to Berlin. On leaving the army in 1963 he remained in Europe and was invited to Paris by Kenny "Klook" Clarke, with whom he played for most of the next six years. 

In 1964 Davis joined Eric Dolphy for a brief residency at the Chat Qui Pechˆ club and also played on the revolutionary reedsman's last recordings, made for the French radio station ORTF. The next year Davis toured Europe with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and was asked to join the band on a permanent basis; however, he declined, feeling that the touring life was too precarious. 

                  Here’s “While Children Sleep” from above album

                                   

After making a series of excellent (but long-deleted) albums for small European labels - featuring players such as Jones, Clarke, Woody Shaw, Larry Young, Mal Waldron and Hampton Hawes - Davis returned to the USA in 1969 to teach jazz at Pittsburgh University, where he has since remained. Davis holds a B.M.E. from the University of Kansas and a Ph.D. from Wesleyan University, Connecticut. He was a full Professor of Music at the University of Pittsburgh where he founded the undergraduate Jazz Studies Program and helped establish a Ph.D. program in Ethnomusicology. 

He continued to record sporadically in the ‘60’s making two albums for the small Pittsburgh company Segue followed by three more for his own Tomorrow International label, on which he tried his hand at fusion: but, as with his European releases, these were never widely distributed. Davis has had bad luck with recordings: not only are most of his own albums unavailable, but his work with Blakey, Clarke and Dolphy remains largely unreleased. The situation began to change in the 80s: the London-based Hot House label reissued his 1967 John Coltrane homage, “Rules Of Freedom,” and later released the new “London By Night.” 

In 1985, Davis formed the neo-bebop Paris Reunion Band, comprising various USA musicians who had lived in Paris in the 60s, recording and touring with them in the late 80s: personnel, at different times, has included Johnny Griffin, Joe Henderson, Shaw, Nat Adderley, Dizzy Reece, Slide Hampton, Kenny Drew, Jimmy Woode and Idris Muhammad. He also toured and recorded with the post-bop ensemble Roots. Both of these ensembles he went on to direct and tour with in the early ‘90’s as well. 

Nevertheless, it is early albums such as “Hip Walk” (1966) and “The 6th Sense In The 11th House” (1972) that represent Davis' finest work. In particular, his superb tenor on the former's "While Children Sleep" and his glorious bass clarinet on the latter's "The Shadow Of Your Smile" suggest he is one of the great balladeers of modern jazz. His recordings are all considered highly collectable by aficionados and are available in reissues. 

Davis composed various pieces, including a 2004 opera entitled Just Above My Head. After 44 years, Davis retired from the University of Pittsburgh in June 2013. On October 5, 2013, Davis was awarded the Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation's BNY Mellon Jazz Living Legacy Award at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. 

From 2013, he spent a large part of his retirement in Florida, where he died in 2018 of congestive heart failure at a hospital in Palm Beach on April 8, 2018 at the age of 81. 

(Edited from All About Jazz, Wikipedia & AllMusic)