| 81 years ago (1933) | The first singing telegram is sent--to a popular singer, Rudy Vallee, on the occasion of his 32nd birthday. |
| 76 years ago (1938) | Guitarist/songwriter George Cummings of Dr. Hook is born in Meridian, Mississippi. |
| 75 years ago (1939) | Judy Garland records Over The Rainbow. |
| 71 years ago (1943) | Pink Floyd keyboardist Rick Wright is born in Hatch End, Middlesex, England. |
| 71 years ago (1943) | Guitarist Mike Bloomfield is born in Chicago, Illinois. He'll play on Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited album, found Electric Flag with drummer Buddy Miles, and be a part of the Butterfield Blues Band. |
| 68 years ago (1946) | Singer and guitarist Jonathan Edwards is born in Aitkin, Minnesota. He'll hit with Sunshine in 1972. |
| 65 years ago (1949) | Drummer Simon Kirke of Free and Bad Company is born in Lambeth, London, England. Steve Took (of T. Rex) is born in Eltham, also in London, England. And down under, pop singer Peter Doyle of The New Seekers is born in Melbourne, Australia. |
| 63 years ago (1951) | Rosemary Clooney's Come-On-A My House hits #1 in the US for the first of eight weeks. |
| 60 years ago (1954) | Steve Morse, guitarist for Dixie Dregs, Deep Purple, and Kansas, is born in Hamilton, Ohio. |
| 60 years ago (1954) | The Crew-Cuts' cover of Sh-Boom hits #1 for the first of nine weeks in the US. |
| 60 years ago (1954) | Elvis Presley gets his first interview with an article published in his hometown paper, the Memphis Press-Scimitar. |
| 58 years ago (1956) | Elvis Presley’s I Want You, I Need You, I Love You hits #1 on the Country charts. |
| 58 years ago (1956) | Gene Vincent makes his first national TV appearance, singing Be-Bop-a-Lula on NBC's The Perry Como Show. |
| 57 years ago (1957) | Jerry Lee Lewis makes his television debut on The Steve Allen Show. Lewis is booked for two more appearances. |
| 56 years ago (1958) | Billboard reports on a claim from the Esso Research Center “...tuning in rock & roll music on a car radio can cost a motorist money,” because the rhythm can cause a driver to unconsciously jiggle the gas pedal, thus wasting fuel. |
| 56 years ago (1958) | Doris Day’s Everybody Loves A Lover enters the charts, where it reaches #14. The Poni-Tails' Born Too Late also debuts, eventually reaching #7. And The Elegants’ Little Star starts its run to the top spot. |
| 53 years ago (1961) | The Tokens record The Lion Sleeps Tonight. |
| 52 years ago (1962) | Tommy Roe's Sheila enters the Hot 100 at #93. It will top the charts by September 1. |
| 52 years ago (1962) | Singer/actress Rachel Sweet is born in Akron, Ohio. She'll record the 1981 hit Everlasting Love with Rex Smith. |
| 46 years ago (1968) | The Beatles hold their “Mad Day Out,” an all-day group photography session across London, which produces most of their well-known latter-day photographs, including the cover of Life and the inside gatefold of their Beatles 1967-1970 album. |
| 44 years ago (1970) | Mick Jagger makes his acting debut in the title role of Ned Kelly. The film opens today. |
| 41 years ago (1973) | Grand Funk Railroad's We're An American Band is released. |
| 41 years ago (1973) | Chicago's Chicago VI LP begins its 5-week run at the top of the charts. |
| 41 years ago (1973) | One of the largest rock festivals of all time is held at the Watkins Glen raceway. More than 600,000 show up for one day of music with the Grateful Dead, the Band, and the Allman Brothers. |
| 38 years ago (1976) | Steve Miller Band's Fly Like an Eagle goes gold, on its way to platinum. The album features huge hits as the title track (which makes it to #2), Rock'n Me (goes #1 later in the year), Jet Airliner (#8 in 1977) and Take the Money and Run (#11 this month). |
| 38 years ago (1976) | Jacoby Shaddix, lead singer for Papa Roach, is born in Mariposa, California. |
| 35 years ago (1979) | Ted Nugent, Journey, Aerosmith, and Thin Lizzy headline the World Series of Rock at Cleveland Stadium. After the show, Joe Perry quits Aerosmith when he gets into screaming match with Steven Tyler. He is replaced by Jim Crespo, but rejoins the band in 1984. |
| 29 years ago (1985) | Portland, Oregon, declares today “Kingsmen Day” in honor of their garage-rock native sons, who scored a legendary hit with their version of Louie Louie. |
| 27 years ago (1987) | The Beatles sue Nike and Capitol Records over the use of Revolution in shoe commercials. |
| 25 years ago (1989) | Anne Murray opens the Anne Murray Centre, a multimedia museum of her career, in her hometown of Springhill, Nova Scotia. |
| 24 years ago (1990) | Rapper Soulja Boy is born DeAndre Cortez Way in Chicago, Illinois. |
| 22 years ago (1992) | Patti LaBelle walks offstage during her concert in Warwick, Rhode Island, having complained to the audience about the catering backstage. |
| 21 years ago (1993) | 10,000 Maniacs play their last show with lead singer Natalie Merchant. Merchant leaves the group to pursue a solo career. |
| 19 years ago (1995) | Jimi Hendrix' father James Al Hendrix wins back the rights to his son's name, likeness, image, and music after a number of companies had profited from them over the years. |
| 19 years ago (1995) | Guitarist Eddie Hinton dies at age 51 from a heart attack in Birmingham, Alabama. He wrote the Dusty Springfield hit Breakfast in Bed. Chrissie Hynde also recorded it with UB40. |
| 18 years ago (1996) | Singer Marguerite Ganser Dorste of the Shangri-Las dies of breast cancer. She was 48. |
| 18 years ago (1996) | Jason Thirsk, bassist for Pennywise, dies from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at age 28. And Marge Ganser of The Shangri-Las dies of breast cancer at age 48 in Valley Stream, New York. |
| 15 years ago (1999) | Pete Townshend plays at the Supper Club in New York to showcase his upcoming album, Pete Townshend Live: A Benefit For Maryville Academy. Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder joins Townshend on stage to perform a number of songs including Magic Bus, Heart To Hang Onto and the Pearl Jam classic, Better Man. |
| 14 years ago (2000) | Guitarist Jerome Smith of KC And The Sunshine Band dies in a construction-site accident in Miami, Florida at age 47. |
| 10 years ago (2004) | George Williams, lead vocalist for The Tymes, dies in Maple Shade, New Jersey at age 68. |
| 8 years ago (2006) | Eric Clapton cancels a concert on Red Square in Moscow when Russian authorities pull the plug at the last minute. The Russian promoter had received a permit the day before, but it was withdrawn the next day. Some tickets were priced at more than $370. |
| 8 years ago (2006) | Dionne Warwick hears her hit songs performed in a musical devoted to her career by the Black Ensemble Theater in Chicago. It’s entitled, Don’t Make Me Over (In Tribute to Dionne Warwick). She gets a standing ovation when she enters the theater, and laughs at a joke in the show about her role as host of the “Psychic Friends Network” in the 1990s. |