Musical Birthdays, April 25-May 1

• April 25 - Italo Tajo (1915) Italian bass; Ella Fitzgerald (1918) American singer of jazz and popular music; Albert King (1923) American blues singer and guitarist.
• April 26 -Gertrude "Ma" Rainey (1886) American blues, jazz and vaudeville singer; Joseph Fuchs (1900) American violinist; Bobby Rydell (1942) American rock-and-roll singer and drummer.
  
• April 27 -Friedrich von Flotow (1813) German composer; Nicolas Slonimsky (1894) Russian-born American musicologist, musical lexicographer and composer; Judith Blegen (1941) American soprano.
  
• April 28 - Hermann Suter (1870) Swiss composer and conductor; Louise Homer (1871) American contralto; Nan Merriman (1920) American mezzo-soprano.
  
• April 29 - Sir Thomas Beecham (1879) British conductor; Duke Ellington (1899) American jazz pianist, bandleader and composer; Zubin Mehta (1936) Indian conductor.
  
• April 30 - Franz Lehar (1870) Austrian composer of operettas; Robert Shaw (1916) American conductor; Willie Nelson (1933) American country-music singer, songwriter and guitarist.
  
• May 1 - Kate Smith (1909) American singer of popular music; Judy Collins (1939) American guitarist, songwriter and singer of folk and popular music; Rita Coolidge (1945) American rhythm-and-blues and country-music singer.