Wednesday 20 January 2021

21 January: International Bon Jovi Day

As  today is International Bon Jovi Day – 10 things you might not know about the band Bon Jovi:

  1. They were almost called Johnny Electric. The name Bon Jovi was suggested by Pamela Maher, after the fashion of other bands named for their front man, such as Van Halen.
  2. Jon Bon Jovi was born John Francis Bongiovi, Jr in New Jersey. His father was an ex-marine and his mother, Carol Sharkey, was a florist who used to be a Play Boy Bunny. His father is of Sicilian descent.
  3. Despite being American, the band was inducted into the UK Music Hall of Fame before they were inducted into the American one. The UK bestowed the honour in 2006 but they had to wait until 2018 to be inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
  4. They’ve never had a UK number one single – the closest they got was with their 1994 hit Always which reached number two.
  5. One of their albums is called 7800 Fahrenheit. The title was inspired by the Ray Bradbury novel, Fahrenheit 451 which is so named because books catch fire at 451 degrees Fahrenheit. 7800 degrees Fahrenheit is when rocks start to melt.
  6. Jon Bon Jovi runs the band as a business. Rather than being a bunch of mates playing music together, he owns the band and the rest of them are his employees.
  7. At time of writing the line up is Jon Bon Jovi – lead vocals, acoustic and rhythm guitar, maracas; David Bryan – keyboards, piano, backing and occasional lead vocals; Tico Torres – drums, percussion, backing and occasional lead vocals; Hugh McDonald – bass guitar, backing vocals; and Phil X – lead, rhythm and acoustic guitar, talk box, backing and occasional lead vocals.
  8. Bon Jovi was the last band to play at the old Wembley Stadium before it was demolished.
  9. Jon Bon Jovi’s first professional recording was as the lead singer on a track called R2-D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas, which was part of an album called Christmas in the Stars album which was co-produced by his cousin.
  10. Bon Jovi has released 14 studio albums, five compilations and three live albums. They’ve sold more than 100 million records and performed more than 2,700 concerts in over 50 countries.

New Year New Reading Challenge?

I can help. Here are links to books which meet potential criteria:

A title with three words

A title with six words

A book with a number in the title

A book with a colour in the title

Short story collections/A book with a green cover

A book published in the last year/during lockdown

A book you can finish in a day/A book under 200 pages

A book featuring characters from a deck of cards

A Book set during Christmas

A book with a place in the title

A Debut novel


A book with a plant or flower on the cover/A book about siblings

A book with a female villain or criminal

Includes space travel

Features Royalty

Books featuring skiing or snowboarding

A book with the Olympic games in it

A book with a bird in the title

A book featuring a secret society

A book featuring time travel/alternative dimensions
Raiders Trilogy:

Books featuring superheroes

Books featuring ghosts

From an Indie Publisher/Self published/An author you've not read before/A female author/A genre you wouldn't normally read/A book outside your comfort zone/A book by an author with your initials and your initials are JH
All of them!

More details can be found here

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