| 102 years ago (1922) | Record producer Bob Thiele is born in New York City. He'll co-write Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World under the pseudonym George Douglas. |
| 97 years ago (1927) | Bob Morse of The Hi-Los is born. |
| 95 years ago (1929) | R&B singer/songwriter Harvey Fuqua of The Moonglows is born in Louisville, Kentucky. |
| 91 years ago (1933) | The Kingston Trio’s Nick Reynolds is born. |
| 81 years ago (1943) | Al Ramsey of Gary Lewis and the Playboys is born. |
| 80 years ago (1944) | Country/Pop singer Bobbie Gentry is born Roberta Lee Streeter in Chickasaw County, Mississippi. |
| 77 years ago (1947) | Andy McMaster of The Motors is born. |
| 75 years ago (1949) | Maureen McGovern is born. |
| 74 years ago (1950) | Paper Lace’s Michael Vaughn is born. |
| 69 years ago (1955) | Billboard claims that only two singing stars can be considered guaranteed hit makers these days: Nat King Cole and country star Webb Pierce. |
| 69 years ago (1955) | Chuck Berry's first hit record, Maybellene enters the R&B chart. |
| 67 years ago (1957) | The Bobbette's first and only Top Forty single, Mr. Lee enters the pop charts. The tune is about the trio's high school principal. |
| 66 years ago (1958) | A study by Esso Oil (formerly Standard Oil, eventually Exxon) finds that drivers speed more and therefore waste more gas when listening to the new fad of Rock-and-Roll music. |
| 65 years ago (1959) | Santo and Johnny release Sleepwalk. |
| 63 years ago (1961) | The Tokens record The Lion Sleeps Tonight. |
| 62 years ago (1962) | Karl Mueller of Soul Asylum is born. |
| 57 years ago (1967) | Juliana Hatfield is born. |
| 56 years ago (1968) | The Rascals release People Got To Be Free. And Mama Cass Elliot releases Dream A Little Dream Of Me. |
| 56 years ago (1968) | A riot erupts at Chicago’s Grant Park after Sly And The Family Stone fail to appear for a free concert. |
| 52 years ago (1972) | The Bobby Darin Amusement Company begins the first of a 7-week run as a summer replacement series on CBS. Burt Reynolds and George Burns appear with Darin on the first episode. |
| 51 years ago (1973) | The self-titled debut by the New York Dolls is released via Mercury Records (and produced by Todd Rundgren). The album spawns such glam/proto-punk classics as Personality Crisis, Looking for a Kiss, Trash, and Jet Boy. |
| 50 years ago (1974) | After 23 years, Dinah Shore leaves the NBC-TV network when it cancels her morning program Dinah's Place in order to concentrate on game shows. |
| 50 years ago (1974) | Lynyrd Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama is released. |
| 50 years ago (1974) | John Denver's Annie’s Song hits #1 for the first of two weeks. |
| 48 years ago (1976) | Bruce Springsteen sues his manager Mike Appel in Manhattan's U.S. District Court for fraud and breach of contract. The lawsuit is over his lack of artistic and financial freedom. Two days later, Appel counters with a suit in New York Supreme Court. Lititgation drags on for a year, putting a temporary halt on Springsteen's rock & roll career. |
| 48 years ago (1976) | John Lennon receives his green card, granting him permanent residency status in the U.S. His fight to obtain the card had begun four years earlier. |
| 48 years ago (1976) | Tina Turner files for divorce from Ike. |
| 45 years ago (1979) | Alice Cooper's Indian art store in Scottsdale, Arizona is hit by a firebomb. Gone are $200,000 worth of artifacts and some of Cooper's gold records, which were stored in the back. Cooper said maybe a “disco-music freak” was responsible because he had been making some anti-disco remarks. |
| 41 years ago (1983) | Madonna releases her first album. The self-titled debut doesn't burn up the charts and is derided by Rolling Stone (which calls her voice “irritating as hell”), but gets traction in dance clubs, setting the stage for her breakout second album, Like A Virgin. |
| 40 years ago (1984) | Prince's first movie, Purple Rain opens nationally. |
| 34 years ago (1990) | Bobby Day of Rockin’ Robin fame dies. |
| 32 years ago (1992) | Michael Jackson sues the London tabloid Daily Mirror over claims that too many plastic surgeries have left him permanently disfigured. |
| 31 years ago (1993) | Steve Vai’s third solo album, Sex & Religion, is issued. The release is credited simply to “Vai,” and is his first to feature traditional vocals, which were provided by a then-unknown Devin Townsend. |
| 30 years ago (1994) | Bob Seger serves jury duty in Michigan and, as the foreman in a criminal trial, finds the defendant guilty. |
| 23 years ago (2001) | Leon Wilkeson, bassist for Lynyrd Skynyrd, dies. |
| 20 years ago (2004) | Michael Jackson signs autographs for surprised shoppers while buying toys and stuffed animals in a Houston mall. Jackson was in Houston to meet with a lawyer about a music contract issue. |
| 18 years ago (2006) | The company behind file-sharing service Kazaa agrees to pay record labels over $115 million in damages for piracy. |
| 15 years ago (2009) | A law enforcement official tells The Associated Press that Michael Jackson’s personal doctor administered a powerful anesthetic to help him sleep, and authorities believe the drug is what killed the pop singer. |
| 9 years ago (2015) | Lynn Anderson, who never promised us a Rose Garden in 1971, dies of cardiac arrest in Nashville at the age of 67. |
| 3 years ago (2021) | Dusty Hill, the bassist for blues-rock trio ZZ Top, dies in his sleep. He was 72. Hill served as the still-active group’s bassist for over 50 years. In 2004, Hill was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the group, which was founded in 1969. |