Portrait of Jet Black

Birthday profile

Jet Black

Jet Black, English drummer (died 2022)

Born
August 26, 1938
Died
December 6, 2022
Zodiac sign
Virgo
Birth year
1938

About Jet Black

Brian John Duffy, known professionally as Jet Black, was an English drummer and founding member of punk rock/new wave band the Stranglers. He last performed with the band in 2015, and officially retired in 2018. Black said he was particularly fond of The Raven album because it was "the first time the Stranglers got major critical approval in the newspapers." Black had no contact with Hugh Cornwell after he left the band in 1990. Drummer Jim Macaulay played the first half of the set on a separate, smaller drum kit. Duffy was known as Jet Black when he became a full-time professional musician in the mid-1970s and met Hugh Cornwell of the band Johnny Sox after reading an advertisement in Melody Maker magazine. In the mid-1980s, Black elected to cease playing acoustic drums in the recording studio and used a Simmons kit triggered by pick-ups, most notably on the Feline and Aural Sculpture albums.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Jet Black was born

Jet Black was born in 1938. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1938

  • #1 song"A-Tisket, A-Tasket" – Ella Fitzgerald
  • Top movieThe Adventures of Robin Hood
  • Best-selling bookRebecca – Daphne du Maurier

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentJoe Louis knocks out Max Schmeling in round 1
  • Top headlineWar of the Worlds broadcast causes nationwide panic
  • Technology milestoneNuclear fission discovered
  • Defining fadSuperman debuts in Action Comics #1
  • Notable inventionInstant coffee (Nescafé)
  • World population2.30 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderFranklin D. Roosevelt
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • U.S. population129.8M

1938 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Jet Black's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19382026
Gas$0.20$3.45/gal
Average home$5,100$435,000
Average income$2,800$67,500
Minimum wage$0.25$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population129.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, MusicBrainz, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.