| 85 years ago (1934) | Singer, actor, and game show host Bert Convy is born. |
| 84 years ago (1935) | Cleveland Duncan of The Penguins is born. |
| 77 years ago (1942) | Madeline Bell of Blue Mink is born. |
| 76 years ago (1943) | Tony Joe White is born in Oak Grove, Louisiana. |
| 74 years ago (1945) | Dino Danelli of The Young Rascals is born. |
| 73 years ago (1946) | Andy Mackay of Roxy Music is born. |
| 72 years ago (1947) | Singer David Essex is born. |
| 71 years ago (1948) | John Hall of Orleans is born. |
| 69 years ago (1950) | Blair Thornton of Bachman-Turner Overdrive is born. |
| 68 years ago (1951) | Rosemary Clooney's Come On A My House hits #1. |
| 67 years ago (1952) | Janis Siegel of Manhattan Transfer is born. |
| 64 years ago (1955) | Chuck Berry's first single, Maybellene, is released. |
| 58 years ago (1961) | Martin Gore of Depeche Mode is born. |
| 57 years ago (1962) | The American Communications satellite, Telstar, makes its first trans-Atlantic transmission, which inspires British record producer Joe Meek to pen Telstar. The instrumental tune is recorded later in the week by the Toronados. The song becomes a big hit, spending three weeks at #1. |
| 56 years ago (1963) | High school student Neil Young and his band, the Squires, enter a Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada studio to record their first single, a surf instrumental called The Sultan. |
| 55 years ago (1964) | Tim Kellett of Simply Red is born. So is Nick Menza of Megadeth. |
| 54 years ago (1965) | Slash of Guns N' Roses is born. |
| 53 years ago (1966) | Frank Sinatra's Strangers In The Night LP hits #1 as Roger Miller's You Can't Roller Skate In A Buffalo Herd is just entering the charts. |
| 51 years ago (1968) | The Jackson 5 take a trip from their home in Gary, Indiana, to Detroit, where they audition for Motown Records. Their audition is taped and sent to Berry Gordy in Los Angeles, who quickly signs the act. |
| 51 years ago (1968) | The Iveys, later known as Badfinger, sign with Apple Records after a persistent campaign by longtime Beatles associate Mal Evans, who will produce their first sessions. |
| 50 years ago (1969) | James Brown walks out of L.A. Mayor Sam Yorty's office when the mayor fails to show up at 10 a.m. as promised. Yorty was going to present Brown with a proclamation declaring James Brown Day. |
| 50 years ago (1969) | Three Dog Night’s One is certified gold. |
| 49 years ago (1970) | Pressure from the community and the local government persuades a New Haven, Connecticut district court to rule against the Powder Ridge Rock Festival. It’s decided that the festival would create a public nuisance and can’t be held even though over 18,000 tickets have all ready been sold. Acts like Chuck Berry, Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin are notified of a ban on their appearance at the site. The crowds come anyway. |
| 49 years ago (1970) | Sam Watters of Color Me Badd is born. |
| 48 years ago (1971) | Alison Krauss is born. So are Chad Gracey of Live and Dalvin DeGrate of Jodeci. |
| 42 years ago (1977) | Led Zeppelin's drummer, John Bonham, manager Peter Grant, and two security guards are arrested backstage at the Oakland Coliseum. They are charged with battery after allegedly beating up three employees of Bill Graham, the group’s Oakland concert promoter. After pleading guilty to misdemeanors, the accused settle out of court for two million dollars. |
| 42 years ago (1977) | Foreigner's Cold As Ice is released. |
| 42 years ago (1977) | Barry Manilow’s Looks Like We Made It hits #1. |
| 40 years ago (1979) | Iran's new leader, the Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, bans rock and roll as a corruptive influence on the people, a decision that eventually inspires both the graphic novel Perseopolis and the Clash song Rock The Casbah. |
| 39 years ago (1980) | Michelle Williams of Destiny's Child and Steve Jocz of Sum 41 are born. Keith Godchaux of The Grateful Dead dies. |
| 39 years ago (1980) | Former Grateful Dead keyboardist, Keith Godchaux dies of injuries sustained in a car accident in Marin County, California. |
| 38 years ago (1981) | Billy Squier earns his first gold album. He has a big hit with his second solo record, Don't Say No. |
| 36 years ago (1983) | The Police's Synchronicity goes to #1 on the Billboard album chart. |
| 35 years ago (1984) | Vanessa Williams gives up her Miss America crown midway through her run after naked pictures of her appear in Penthouse. The controversy doesn't keep her from becoming a very popular actress and singer, though. In 1991 she’ll release her #1 hit Save The Best For Last. |
| 35 years ago (1984) | After a jury decides that the Bee Gees plagiarized a song they had never heard to create How Deep Is Your Love, an appeals court rules that “striking similarity” between songs is not enough to prove plagiarism. Moving forward, it must be proven that a songwriter had access to a song he allegedly stole from. |
| 30 years ago (1989) | Ringo Starr begins his first tour since The Beatles stopped touring in 1966, introducing his "All-Starr Band" of Seventies icons in Dallas, Texas. |
| 29 years ago (1990) | Production begins on the film Falling From Grace, which marks John Mellencamp's acting and directing debut. |
| 27 years ago (1992) | Bruce Springsteen opens his first U.S. tour since 1988 at The Brendan Byrne arena in the Meadowlands complex in New Jersey. The Boss plays 10 sold out shows in the 21,000-seat arena, with some of the shows going until 1AM. |
| 25 years ago (1994) | The International Astronomical Union names an asteroid in Mars’ orbit ZappaFrank, after the musician Frank Zappa, who'd passed away from cancer the year before. |
| 18 years ago (2001) | Megadeth is banned from playing in Malaysia. The band was scheduled to perform in the Southeast Asian country three weeks later but was forced to cancel because authorities thought their albums contained “unsuitable imagery.” |
| 18 years ago (2001) | Three years after the death of first wife Linda, Paul McCartney gets engaged to former model and activist Heather Mills, whom he met at a charity event in 1999. The marriage lasts four years and produces Beatrice Milly McCartney and a large settlement for Mills. |
| 16 years ago (2003) | The US National Registry of Historic Places declares Memphis, Tennessee's Sun Studios, at 706 Union Avenue, a historic landmark. |
| 16 years ago (2003) | In a bizarre ad placed in Variety, James Brown announces his separation from his fourth wife, Tomi Rae, by featuring a picture of the couple and their two-year-old, James Brown II, posing with Goofy at Disney World. |
| 10 years ago (2009) | Danny McBride of Sha-Na-Na dies. |
| 10 years ago (2009) | With Nas and Kelis squabbling over child support and divorce for the past few months, both sides accusing each other of infidelity, Los Angeles Superior Court orders Nasir Jones to pay Kelis Rogers nearly $40,000 in monthly support, with Kelis receiving $30,471 in spousal support per month, with the couple’s son receiving $9,027 per month. |
| 9 years ago (2010) | Kings of Leon have a strange encounter during a show in St. Louis when just a few songs into their set, they abruptly leave the stage, complaining about a flurry of bird poop coming from a flock of pigeons chilling in the rafters. The band never returns, and a full refund is made available to all concertgoers. |
| 8 years ago (2011) | Amy Winehouse dies of alcohol poisoning. |