John Belmont

John Joseph Travolta is 61 years old today.

Ray Charles

The song “What’d I Say” was improvised one evening late in 1958
when Charles, his orchestra, and backup singers had played their
entire set list at a show and still had time left; the response from
many audiences was so enthusiastic that Charles announced to
his producer that he was going to record it.

For the rest of his career, Charles closed every concert with the
song. It was added to the National Recording Registry in 2002
and ranked at number 10 in Rolling Stone ‘​s "The 500 Greatest
Songs of All Time".

Cover of the first issue of News-Week magazine with seven photographs
from the week’s news.

News-Week was launched by Thomas J.C. Martyn, a former foreign-news editor
for Time. He obtained financial backing from a group of U.S. stockholders which 
included Ward Cheney, of the Cheney silk family.

Journalist Thomas John Cardell Martyn

Brian Thomas

Michael Jeffrey Jordan is 52 years old today.

Guernsey’s Auctions President Arlan Ettinger holds the ‘Black Beauty’, a
prototype made by Guitarist Les Paul.

The Les Paul prototype guitar that came to be known as ‘Black Beauty’ will be on
the auction block at Arader Galleries on Madison Avenue on Thursday, February
19, and could fetch over $2 million.