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Birthdays on the Tube: 28 February-6 March

Chopin, Lou Reed, Brian Jones, Cindy Wilson, Furry Wilson and Miriam Makeba

by Peter CulshawSunday, 28 February 2010

Lou Reed: Happy Birthday, you old curmurgeon

Our ongoing series celebrating musicians’ birthdays. This week’s include Lou Reed, in action in a stupendous version of "Venus in Furs" with the Velvet Underground, Chopin played by the wonderful Martha Argerich, archive footage of Miriam Makeba, Brian Jones and bottle-neck blues maestro, Furry Lewis. Videos below.

2 March 1942: Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground, performing "Venus in Furs". Definitive proof that, contrary to speculation elsewhere on the site, you don't need more than three chords to make great music?

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Here' s Lou being contrary as ever, and channelling Andy Warhol in an interview with Australian TV in 1974.

4 March 1932: Miriam Makeba, Nelson Mandela's favourite singer, at her peak in moving footage from a TV show in 1966

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28 February 1957: The birthday of Cindy Wilson, one of the singers of the B52s provides a plausible excuse to dig out the video of their ecstatic "Love Shack".

28 February 1942: The tragic guitarist Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones in a rare interview discussing, among other things, his fear of marriage.

6 March 1893: Furry Lewis, blues maestro and pioneer of bottle-neck guitar sings "When I lay my burden down."

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22 February 1810: Frederic Chopin's first Piano Concerto played by the superb Martha Argerich.

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