September 27 gave the world an unusually eclectic collection of voices.

A revolutionary.

A king.

A legendary television impresario.

Rockers.

Rappers.

Actors.

A pop-punk icon.

And one bassist whose life lasted only 24 years...

but whose sound is still rumbling through amplifiers 40 years after his death.

Welcome to today's B&P.

Born September 27, 1982, Lil Wayne turns 44 today.

Rapper, songwriter and executive, Wayne became one of the defining hip-hop artists of his generation, building an enormous catalog and influencing artists who followed him.

Forty-four years old...

with decades of hip-hop history already behind him.

Avril Lavigne turns 42.

When she arrived in the early 2000s, pop radio suddenly had a different kind of star in the room.

Pop-punk attitude.

Skateboards.

Ties.

Guitars.

And songs that became part of the soundtrack of an era.

More than two decades later, the Canadian singer-songwriter remains strongly associated with the pop-punk explosion she helped carry into the mainstream.

Academy Award-winning actor Gwyneth Paltrow turns 54.

Her career has ranged from Shakespeare in Love and other major film roles to entrepreneurship through Goop.

Acting, business, lifestyle media...

quite a few chapters for 54 candles.

Jenna Ortega turns 24.

Still remarkably young for someone already carrying a substantial screen résumé, Ortega became internationally recognizable through Wednesday, bringing a new generation to one of popular culture's most gloriously gloomy families.

Twenty-four.

Wednesday Addams would presumably decline the birthday balloons.

Here's one for the classic-rock room.

Randy Bachman turns 83.

His musical résumé runs through The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive, placing his guitar across decades of rock history.

Some birthdays deserve cake.

This one might require an amplifier.

Comedian, actor and podcaster Marc Maron turns 63.

His long-running WTF with Marc Maron became an influential part of the podcasting landscape, built around extended conversations with entertainers, musicians and cultural figures.

Sometimes the microphone becomes the room where the story happens.

Former teen idol Shaun Cassidy turns 68.

But Cassidy's career did not stop when the posters came down.

He moved extensively into television writing and production, creating a second professional life largely on the other side of the camera.

Stephan Jenkins, singer, songwriter and guitarist for Third Eye Blind, turns 62.

Another birthday today with a sizable chunk of the late-1990s alternative-rock soundtrack attached to it.

Today's date also gave us several people whose stories long outlived their birthdays.

Don Cornelius, creator and host of Soul Train, was born on this date.

Cornelius created far more than a television program.

Soul Train became an institution showcasing Black music, dance, fashion and culture to an enormous audience.

The train kept moving long after its conductor left the station.

Marvin Lee Aday, forever known as Meat Loaf, was born September 27, 1947.

Big voice.

Big arrangements.

Big emotion.

And an album called Bat Out of Hell that became one of rock's enduring landmarks.

Subtlety was rarely the point.

That was rather the point.

And considerably farther back...

American revolutionary and Founding Father Samuel Adams was born September 27, 1722.

Long before his name became familiar to many Americans from a beer bottle, Adams was deeply involved in the political agitation and organization preceding the American Revolution.

Travel farther still and we reach Louis XIII of France, born September 27, 1601.

His reign unfolded amid the immense political and religious struggles of 17th-century Europe, including the Thirty Years' War.

September 27 has been collecting stories for a very long time.

And now we turn the page.

On September 27, 1986, Cliff Burton, bassist for Metallica, died in a tour-bus accident in Sweden.

He was only 24 years old.

Forty years later, Burton remains one of heavy metal's most remembered bassists.

His tenure with Metallica was brief, but it intersected with the band's formative early records and a period that became foundational to thrash metal.

There is something particularly startling about anniversaries like this.

Burton has now been gone far longer than he was alive.

Yet somewhere today...

someone who was not even born in 1986 will put on an old Metallica recording...

hear that bass...

and discover him for the first time.

🎸🕯️

French artist Edgar Degas died September 27, 1917, at 83.

Painter.

Sculptor.

Observer of movement.

His images of dancers became among the most recognizable works associated with Impressionism, even though Degas himself had a complicated relationship with that label.

More than a century later, those dancers still appear to be caught between one movement and the next.

Scottish guitarist Jimmy McCulloch died on this date in 1979 at only 26.

His career included work with Wings, placing another remarkably young musician on today's remembrance page.

Two years ago today, the world lost Dame Maggie Smith.

Across an extraordinary career, Smith moved between stage, cinema and television with a combination of precision, authority and wonderfully dry wit.

Later generations knew her as Professor McGonagall in Harry Potter and Violet Crawley in Downton Abbey.

But those roles belonged to a career extending across many decades.

Some performers enter a scene.

Maggie Smith could simply raise an eyebrow...

and apparently the scene understood who was in charge.

Actor, dancer and singer Donald O'Connor died September 27, 2003, at 78.

His astonishingly physical “Make 'Em Laugh” performance in Singin' in the Rain remains one of classic Hollywood's great demonstrations of comic athleticism.

Watching it can make gravity seem more like a suggestion.

Babe Didrikson Zaharias died on this date at only 45.

Her athletic résumé almost sounds fictional.

Olympic champion in track and field.

Then one of women's golf's dominant competitors, eventually winning 10 LPGA major championships.

Not merely excellent at several sports.

Historically significant in several of them.

Finally, a security guard doing his job.

Frank Wills died September 27, 2000.

In 1972, while working at Washington's Watergate complex, Wills noticed tape placed suspiciously over a door latch.

He reported it.

That small observation helped expose the burglary that became the Watergate scandal and ultimately contributed to President Richard Nixon's resignation.

History sometimes announces itself with armies and speeches.

Sometimes...

What a strange gathering today's calendar gives us.

Don Cornelius and Soul Train.

Meat Loaf roaring toward Bat Out of Hell.

Avril Lavigne carrying pop-punk into another generation.

Jenna Ortega dressed in Wednesday black.

Babe Didrikson refusing to belong to only one sport.

Maggie Smith commanding a room.

Frank Wills noticing something that didn't look right.

And Cliff Burton...

24 forever.

Forty years gone.

Still being heard.

Birthdays and passings remind us of something the calendar quietly demonstrates every day:

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