Birthdays on the Tube: 30 January-6 February

This week's birthdays include a trio of incandescent rock legends – Axl Rose musing about recording a triple album and sacking his drummer, Alice Cooper on corrupting the youth, and Nigel Tufnel, lead guitarist of Spinal Tap, pushing the amp up to 11. There’s musicologist Alan Lomax on prison songs, a clip of a film melodrama with violinist Jascha Heifetz, a tour of the world with Bob Marley on Google Earth from Trenchtown to Addis Ababa, and Barrett Strong, who recorded the original, terrific version of "Money" on Motown in 1959. All together now: “Your lovin' gives me a thrill/ But your lovin' don't pay my bills.”

5 February 1948: Christopher Guest, the 5th Baron Haden-Guest, playing Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap in the scene where the Stonehenge stage set didn't come up to spec.

6 February 1962: Axl Rose, the guitarist of Guns'N'Roses, discusses why the band had to do a triple album and the ongoing Spinal Tap-like drummer problem.

4 February 1948: Alice Cooper, real name Vincent Furnier, being interviewed by an earnest Finnish TV reporter in 1973.

6 February 1945: One of the trippiest things I've seen on the web is the tours you can do on Google Earth - one of the best is the Bob Marley tour which takes you from Tuff Gong in Kingston to Max's Kansas City in New York, to London and Ethiopia. Link here. Or just search for "Bob Marley tour" on Google Earth. Meanwhile, here's Marley and the Wailers at their best singing "Stir It Up".

31 January 1915: Alan Lomax, the celebrated and controversial musicologist, who spent decades recording African American traditional music and was a "world music" pioneer, introduces "the most wonderful song I ever heard" from a Texas penitentiary.

2 February 1901: Violinist Jascha Heifetz plays the 3rd movement of Mendelssohn's violin concerto (whose birthday is coincidentally also this week on 3 February 1809) in a Hollywood melodrama, They Shall Have Music.

5 February 1941: Barrett Strong singing the original version of "Money" which was Motown's first hit in 1959. Strong went on to become one of Motown's chief songwriters. No videos seem to exist, but well worth hearing anyway. Way better than either the posh girl singing it for the Flying Lizards or the Beatles version?