Sept. 29: R&B singer Debelah Morgan is 33 today.

Singer and songwriter Debelah Morgan, born in Detroit, Michigan is best known for her top10 Pop hit "Dance with Me."

In 1994 at the age of sixteen, Morgan released her debut album Debelah on Atlantic Records. Following the release of two singles,"Take It Easy" and "Free," which had only so-so success on the R&B charts, she was dropped by the label. In 1997, she signed with Motown Records and worked on her second album.

In 1998, she released the single "Yesterday" which peaked at #28 on Billboard's R&B chart. A second single, "I Love You" was released in Japan.

In 1998 and 1999, she was featured on three soundtrack albums: Fame L.A., Our Friend, Martin and Stuart Little. Her contribution to the Stuart Little soundtrack was a cover version of the 1993 Exposé song "As Long as I Can Dream." The other two soundtracks featured songs from her album It's Not Over.

In 2000, she was once again signed with Atlantic Records under a new division called The DAS Label. Her first single from her third album, "Dance with Me" was released in the summer of 2000 and became her biggest hit to date. It peaked at #8 on the Hot 100 and did well on other charts. Her third album, Dance with Me, followed on August 15, and included her single "I Remember."

In 2003 she recorded two songs for the soundtrack of the movie Road Kings titled "Fly Free" and "I'll Take You There."

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Sept. 29: Today is "Killer" Jerry Lee Lewis' 75th birthday.

Jerry Lee Lewis was an early pioneer of rock and roll music.

Born in Concordia Parish in eastern Louisiana, Jerry Lee's parents mortgaged their farm to buy him a piano and he began playing it along with his two cousins, Mickey Gilley and Jimmy Swaggart.

Influenced by a piano-playing older cousin Carl McCoy, the radio, and the sounds from the black juke joint across the tracks, Haney's Big House, Lewis created his style from black artists who were unable to play to white audiences. He  mixed rhythm and blues, boogie-woogie, gospel, and country music, as well as ideas from established "country boogie" pianists like recording artists Moon Mullican and Merrill Moore.

Jerry Lee's third wife, his 13-year-old cousin, Myra.

After being expelled from Bible college, Jerry Lee started playing at clubs in and around Ferriday and Natchez, Mississippi, becoming part of the burgeoning new rock and roll sound and cutting his first demo recording in 1954. He made a trip to Nashville around 1955 where he played clubs and attempted to generate interest, but was turned down by the Grand Ole Opry.

Lewis traveled to Memphis, Tennessee in November 1956, to audition for Sun Records. Label owner Sam Phillips was away on a trip to Florida, but producer and engineer Jack Clement recorded Lewis's rendition of Ray Price's "Crazy Arms" and his own composition "End of The Road." During December 1956, Lewis began recording regularly, both as a solo artist and as a session musician for such Sun artists as Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash.

(Follow links below to view You Tube Videos:)

-- "Great Balls of Fire"

-- "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On"

--  "Farther Along" - The Million Dollar Quartet (Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee)

Jerry Lee's distinctive piano playing can be heard on many tracks recorded at Sun during late 1956 and early 1957, including Carl Perkins' "Matchbox,""Your True Love," "You Can Do No Wrong," and "Put Your Cat Clothes On," and Billy Lee Riley's "Flyin' Saucers Rock'n'Roll." Until this time, rockabilly had rarely featured piano, but it proved a highly influential addition and rockabilly artists on other labels soon also started working with pianists.

On December 4, 1956, Elvis Presley dropped in see Sam Phillips while Perkins was in the studio cutting new tracks with Lewis backing him on piano. Johnny Cash was also there, and the four started an impromptu jam session with the tape recorder running. These recordings, almost half of which were gospel songs, survived, and have been released on CD under the title Million Dollar Quartet.

Tracks also include Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel" and "Paralyzed," Chuck Berry's "Brown Eyed Handsome Man," Pat Boone's "Don't Forbid Me" and Presley doing an impersonation of Jackie Wilson on "Don't Be Cruel."

Lewis's own singles - billed as "Jerry Lee Lewis and his Pumping Piano" - established Jerry Lee as a solo artist during 1957, with hits such as "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "Great Balls of Fire," his biggest hit, bringing him to national and international fame, despite some radio stations boycotting his music because they thought it was too "sexual."

In 2005, "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" was selected for permanent preservation in the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress.

Lewis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and his pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. In 2008 He was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him number 24 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. In 2003, they listed his box set All Killer, No Filler: The Anthology number 242 on their list of "500 greatest albums of all time."

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Sept. 28: French Actress and "singer," Brigitte Bardot is 76 today. ADULTS ONLY!

(See new video added at end of post)

Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot is a former fashion model, actress and singer and early in life, an aspiring ballet dancer.

Bardot grew up in a middle-class Roman Catholic family in Paris (which is interesting since most of her movies were "Condemned" by the Catholic Church, at last in the U.S.). Her mother enrolled her and her younger sister Marie-Jean in dance and Brigitte decided to concentrate on a ballet career.

In 1947, Bardot was accepted to The National Superior Conservatory of Paris for Music and Dance and for three years attended the ballet classes of Russian choreographer Boris Knyazev. (One of her classmates was Leslie Caron).

She started her acting career in 1952, and after appearing in 16 films, became world-famous due to her role in her then-husband Roger Vadim's controversial film And God Created Woman. She later starred in Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 cult film, Contempt. She was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actress for her role in Louis Malle's 1965 film, Viva Maria!

(Follow links below to view You Tube Videos:)

-- "Harley Davidson"

--* "Je t'aime... moi non plus" (With Serge Gainsbourg) (ADULTS ONLY)

-- "Brigitte Bardot dance"

-- "Moi Je Joue "

*(Recommended:  See Scarlett Johansson)

Bardot wore a bikini at Cannes Film Festival in 1953, starting the trend of bikini-clad stars for the festival.

She also caught the attention of French intellectuals. She was the subject of Simone de Beauvoir's 1959 essay, The Lolita Syndrome, which described Bardot as a "locomotive of women's history" and built upon existentialist themes to declare her the first and most liberated woman of post-war France.

She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel. These included "Harley Davidson," "Je Me Donne A Qui Me Plait," "Bubble gum," "Contact," "Je Reviendrais Toujours Vers Toi," "L'Appareil A Sous," "La Madrague," "On Demenage," "Sidonie," "Tu Veux, Ou Tu Veux Pas?," "Le Soleil De Ma Vie" (the cover of Stevie Wonder's "You Are the Sunshine of My Life") and "Je t'aime... moi non plus." 

Bardot asked Gainsbourg not to release this duet and he complied with her wishes; the following year he re-recorded a version with British-born model and actress Jane Birkin, which became a massive hit all over Europe. However, the Bardot version was issued in 1986 and became a popular download hit in 2006 when Universal Records made their back catalogue available to purchase online, with this version of the song ranking as the third most popular download.

In 1973 Bardot announced she was retiring from acting at the age of 39 "to get out elegantly". During her career in show business Bardot starred in 47 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. She was awarded the Légion d'honneur in 1985 but refused it.

After her retirement, Bardot established herself as an animal rights activist. During the 1990s she became outspoken due to her criticism of immigration, race-mixing, some aspects of homosexuality and Islam in France, and has been fined five times for "inciting racial hatred."

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BONUS VIDEO

Sept. 28: Today incomparable soul singer Ben E. King is 72 years-old.

Born Benjamin Earl Nelson in Henderson, North Carolina - and raised in Harlem -  Ben E. is best known as the singer and co-composer of "Stand by Me," a U.S. Top 10 hit in both 1961 and 1987 and a #1 hit in the UK in 1987. He also was one of the principal lead singers of the R&B vocal group The Drifters.

In 1958, King joined a doo-wop group called The Five Crowns. Later that year, The Drifters' manager fired the members of the group and replaced them with The Five Crowns, who had performed several engagements with the Drifters.

King co-wrote the first hit by the new version of the Drifters, "There Goes My Baby." He also sang lead (using his birth name,) on "Save the Last Dance for Me," "Dance With Me," "This Magic Moment," "I Count the Tears" and "Lonely Winds."

King only recorded ten songs with The Drifters, including "Temptation" which was later redone by Johnny Moore. King's career with The Drifters was so brief after "There Goes My Baby" hit the charts, he was never again given a chance to perform with the group over an argument about King's contract.

After the dispute settled, King was hired only to sing until they found a replacement. On television, a fellow Drifters member Charlie Thomas usually lip-synched the songs that King recorded with the Drifters.

In May 1960, he left the Drifters after failing to gain a salary increase and a fairer share of the group's royalties. At this point he starting using the stage name Ben E. King which he believed would be more memorable as he embarked on his solo career. He was right. King scored his first solo hit with the ballad "Spanish Harlem."

"Stand by Me" was his next recording. Written by King along with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, "Stand by Me" was voted as one of the Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America. "Stand by Me", "There Goes My Baby" and "Spanish Harlem" were named as three of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll and were all given a Grammy Hall of Fame Award, as well as "Save The Last Dance For Me."

In the summer of 1963, King had a top 30 national hit with "I (Who Have Nothing)," a song that reached the Top 10 on New York's radio station, WMCA.

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