01-10: Howlin' Wolf : Smokestack Lightning Complete Chess Masters 1951-1960 - Anton Karas : The Third Man Original Soundtrack 1949 - Margaret Whiting Sings Rogers & Hart 1947

Not shown: Johan Wikmanson, António da Silva-Leite, Friedrich Karl Kuhmstedt, Josué Teófilo Wilkes & Sverre Jordan

1780 – Francesco Antonio Vallotti (Italian priest, composer, organist & music theorist, developed a well-tempered tuning system)
1792 – Jean-Louis Laruette (French composer & tenor)
1800 – Johan Wikmanson (Swedish organist & composer)
1833 – António da Silva-Leite (Portuguese composer)
1858 – Friedrich Karl Kuhmstedt (German composer, music theorist & teacher)
1876 – Edmond de Coussemaker (Belgian musicologist)
1889 – Martin Andreas Udbye (Norwegian composer & organist)
1892 – Heinrich Dorn (German conductor, composer & music critic)
1895 – Benjamin Godard (French composer, violinist & violist)
1905 – Baumaņu Kārlis [Kārlis Baumanis] (Latvian composer, the Latvian National Anthem, "Dievs, svētī Latviju!")
1939 – Hariclea Darclée (Romanian operatic soprano, creator of title roles in Tosca and La Wally)
1939 – Julius Bittner (Austrian composer)
1941 – Frank Bridge (English composer, violinist, violist, conductor & teacher)
1951 – Athos Palma (Argentine composer)
1953 – Theo Mackeben (German pianist, conductor & composer of film & theatrical music)
1954 – Fred Raymond [Raimund Friedrich Vesely] (Austrian film, theatrical & Schlager composer of Czech descent)
1963 – Tadeusz Szeligowski (Polish composer, teacher, pianist, writer & lawyer)
1967 – Vilém Petrželka (Czech composer & conductor, pupil of Janáček)
1968 – Josué Teófilo Wilkes (Argentine composer & writer)
1969 – John Brownlee (Australian operatic baritone)
1972 – Al Goodman (Ukrainian-born American radio, television, film & musical theater conductor, arranger, composer & pianist)
1972 – Sverre Jordan (Norwegian composer, conductor & music critic)
1976 – Howlin' Wolf [Chester Arthur Burnett] (American blues singer, songwriter, guitarist & harmonica player)
1978 – Don Gillis (American composer, conductor, trombonist & teacher)
1985 – Anton Karas (Austrian zither player & composer of Czech & Hungarian descent, soundtrack for The Third Man)
1997 – Alvinio Misciano (Italian lyric tenor, teacher of Luciano Pavarotti)
2005 – Margherita Carosio (Italian lyric soprano)
2011 – Margaret Whiting (American jazz, pop & country singer)

Can't really think of anything much to say. Howlin' Wolf... Vallotti, a very important name if you're into tuning theory... Coussemaker, one of the heroes of musicology... Howlin' Wolf... Margaret Whiting, great singer... Frank Bridge, whose most famous pupil was Benjamin Britten... Howlin' Wolf... Pavarotti's mentor, Alvinio Misciano, who fell out of a 4th-story window when he was 81... aaaand Howlin' Wolf! Follow the links, there's some good stuff up there... and down there...

01-09: Handel : Giustino HWV 37 / McGegan 1994 - Cozy Cole Hits! 1958 - Songs of Lutoslawski | Serocki | Bloch : Lukomska / Markovsky 1960s

Not shown: Francesca Bertolli, Filippo Traetta & Alexey Kozlovsky

1679 – Werner Fabricius (German composer)
1767 – Francesca Bertolli (Italian contralto, creator of roles in several of Handel's operas)
1854 – Filippo Traetta [Philip Trajetta] (Italian-born American composer & teacher)
1863 – Ferdinand Huber (Swiss composer & collector of Alpine folk music)
1886 – Jakob Eduard Schmölzer (Austrian composer, flutist & collector of Styrian folksongs)
1911 – Edwin Arthur Jones (American composer & violinist)
1911 – William Hall Sherwood (American composer, pianist & teacher, pupil of Liszt)
1939 – Johann Strauss III (Austrian composer & conductor, nephew of Johann Strauss II)
1949 – Amilcare Zanella (Italian composer, pianist & conductor)
1957 – Mary Carr Moore (American composer, conductor, singer & teacher)
1959 – Paul de Maleingreau (Belgian composer & organist)
1962 – Roy Shield (American composer, conductor & music director at NBC)
1966 – Haro Levoni Stepanian [Аро Левонович Степанян] (Azerbaijani composer)
1968 – Louis Aubert (French composer, pianist & singer)
1969 – Ladislav Vycpálek (Czech composer & violist)
1970 – Jani Christou [Γιάννης Χρήστου] (Greek composer & pianist)
1977 – Alexey Kozlovsky [Алексей Козловский] (Ukrainian composer)
1979 – Avery Claflin (American composer & banker, pupil of Erik Satie, business associate of Charles Ives)
1981 – Kazimierz Serocki (Polish composer & pianist, co-founder of Warsaw Autumn music festival)
1981 – Cozy Cole (American jazz drummer)
1987 – Marion Hutton (American jazz & pop singer & actress, sister of Betty Hutton)
1994 – Silas Hogan (American blues singer, guitarist & songwriter, the Rhythm Ramblers)

I'm disappointed at not being able to offer you any Silas Hogan, one of the greats of Louisiana swamp blues. Every day it seems that more things become unavailable. Locating links used to be the easy part of this job.

To clear things up about the Handel: Francesca Bertolli (known more for her beauty than for her voice - which makes it strange that I couldn't locate a likeness of her) sang in about 15 or 20 of Handel's operas during her career, creating roles in some of them. In Giustino (1737) the role she created was that of Leocasta, which is sung here by Jennifer Lane.

01-08a: Carter Family 1927-1929 - Corelli 12 Concerti Grossi Op 6 / Sardelli 1999 - Puccini : Tosca / Tebaldi | Tucker | Warren | Mitropoulos 1956 - Bohemian Wind Music : Smetana | Krommer | Triebensee / Deutschen Kammerphilharmonie 2001

Not shown: Jacobus Vaet, Giovanni Battista Gagliano, Michaël de Ronghe & Christian Gottlob Saupe

1567 – Jacobus Vaet (Franco-Flemish composer)
1651 – Giovanni Battista Gagliano (Italian composer)
1696 – Michaël de Ronghe (Flemish composer)
1713 – Arcangelo Corelli (Italian composer & violinist)
1819 – Christian Gottlob Saupe (German composer)
1831 – Franz Krommer [František Kramář] (Czech composer, violinist & organist)
1864 – Victor-Charles-Paul Dourlen (French composer & teacher, winner of 1805 Prix de Rome)
1890 – Giorgio Ronconi (Italian operatic baritone, created roles in seven Donizetti operas)
1891 – Fredrik Pacius (German composer & conductor, active in Finland)
1921 – Luis Villalba Muñoz ["Mauricio"] (Spanish Augustian friar, composer & author)
1926 – Émile Paladilhe (French composer & pianist, winner of 1860 Prix de Rome)
1928 – Dumitru Kiriac-Georgescu (Romanian composer, conductor & teacher)
1937 – Felix Körling (Swedish composer, organist, choirmaster & teacher)
1942 – Catharinus Elling (Norwegian organist, folk music collector, composer & teacher)
1942 – Arvo Hannikainen (Finnish violinist & composer)
1948 – Richard Tauber (Austrian tenor)
1953 – Heinrich Kaspar Schmid (German composer)
1965 – Aloÿs Fornerod (Swiss composer, pupil of Vincent d'Indy)
1970 – Georges Guibourg [Georgius, Theodore Crapulet] (French singer, songwriter, novelist, playwright & actor)
1971 – Adriano Lualdi (Italian composer & conductor)
1975 – Richard Tucker (American tenor)
1979 – Sara Carter (American country, folk & gospel singer & autoharpist, the Carter Family)

I should have had Émile Paladilhe on January the 6th, but here he is anyway. Paladilhe, at 16 (which looks to be how old he was when the above portrait was made), was the youngest composer ever to win the Prix de Rome, and he was for a time the lover of mezzo Célestine Galli-Marié (creator of the title role in Carmen), so it seemed unthinkable to omit him.

Some famous opera singers are on the list too, including two of the greatest tenors of the 20th century. And there's a famous singer from the early history of country music, Sara Carter, whose style influenced a whole slew of artists from Kitty Wells to Loretta Lynn. But the big-wig for the day is Arcangelo Corelli, whose unbelievably tidy corpus of 72 works (48 trio sonatas, 12 sonatas for violin and continuo, and 12 concerti grossi, all falling into 6 opus numbers of 12 works each) had a greater influence on the instrumental music of the late Baroque than that of any other composer. Throw in a few Nordic notables, and it's another full half-day around here! How soon do you think it will be before we're three months behind?

01-08b: Def Leppard Seattle 1983 - Michael Tippett Choral Works / St John's College Cambridge 2005 - Rachmaninov Piano Sonatas 1 & 2 / Weissenberg 1989 - Brahms Double Concerto / Francescatti | Fournier | Walter 1959

1986 – Pierre Fournier (French cellist)
1989 – Johnny Jordaan [Johannes van Musscher] (Dutch folk singer)
1991 – Steve Clark (English guitarist, songwriter & singer, Def Leppard)
1993 – Theo Bruins (Dutch pianist & composer)
1996 – Howard Taubman (American music & theater critic, New York Times)
1997 – George Handy (American jazz arranger, composer & pianist, pupil of Aaron Copland)
1997 – Carole Carr (English pop singer & actress, Down Among the Z Men)
1998 – Sir Michael Tippett (English composer & conductor)
2003 – Ron Goodwin (English film composer, arranger & conductor, Force 10 from Navarone)
2008 – Clyde Otis (American jazz & R&B songwriter, producer & A&R executive, Mercury Records)
2012 – Alexis Weissenberg (Bulgarian-born French pianist)