| 87 | years ago | 1939 | Motown singer Jimmy Ruffin, older brother of the Temptation’s David Ruffin, is born in Collinsville, Mississippi. |
| 87 | years ago | 1939 | Singer Johnny Maestro is born. |
| 80 | years ago | 1946 | Singer, songwriter, and Grammy Award-winner Bill Danoff is born. He grows up to co-write Take Me Home Country Roads with John Denver and Taffy Nivert. Also with Nivert, he writes I Guess He'd Rather Be in Colorado, another song that’s a hit for Denver, and which is adopted as the Centennial State's theme. |
| 80 | years ago | 1946 | Grateful Dead’s Bill Kreutzmann is born. |
| 65 | years ago | 1961 | Phil Campbell of Motorhead is born. |
| 65 | years ago | 1961 | Tony Orlando makes his chart debut with Halfway to Paradise, which peaks at #39. He'll have one more hit next year and then won't be heard from until 1970 when he reappears with a trio, Dawn. |
| 61 | years ago | 1965 | Chris O'Connor of Primitive Radio Gods is born. |
| 60 | years ago | 1966 | Simon and Garfunkel's I Am a Rock enters the Hot 100 -- the folk-pop duo's third chart entry. In its eleven weeks on the chart, it will peak at #3. |
| 60 | years ago | 1966 | Del Shannon enters the Hot 100 for the 16th time with The Big Hurt. It peaks at #94. We'll hear from Shannon again in 1981 when he has a top forty hit with Sea of Love, produced by Tom Petty. |
| 59 | years ago | 1967 | According to the New York Times, Soviet youths openly defied police last week and danced the twist in Moscow's Red Square during May Day celebrations. |
| 57 | years ago | 1969 | The battle for control of The Beatles' Northern Songs continues. Late last month, The Beatles made a $5.1 million counter offer to Northern Songs stockholders in an attempt to thwart Associated TV's bid to win control of the company. Today, representatives of Warner Brothers-Seven Arts are expected in London to discuss the purchase of fifteen percent of the company. |
| 54 | years ago | 1972 | The Rolling Stones release the second album on their own label, Exile on Main Street. It contains two hits, Tumbling Dice and Happy. |
| 54 | years ago | 1972 | The Bickershaw Festival begins, featuring the Grateful Dead, Donovan, Wishbone Ash, Captain Beefheart, Hawkwind, and others in Wigan, Lancashire, UK. |
| 53 | years ago | 1973 | George Harrison releases Give Me Love which will become his second #1 single. It's the first release from Living in the Material World, his second #1 LP. |
| 50 | years ago | 1976 | All-female rock band The Runaways signs with Mercury Records. Members include Lita Ford and Joan Jett. The band is panned in the U.S., but does very well overseas, charting in Japan at #1 with Cherry Bomb in January of 1977. |
| 49 | years ago | 1977 | Steven Bishop's On & On is released. |
| 48 | years ago | 1978 | The 90,000 tickets on sale for Bob Dylan's upcoming concerts at London's Wembley Empire Pool sell out in less than eight hours. |
| 35 | years ago | 1991 | A judge in Macon, Georgia dismisses a wrongful death suit against rocker Ozzy Osbourne after a local couple fails to prove their son was inspired to attempt suicide by Ozzy's music. |
| 21 | years ago | 2005 | Amid allegations of an affair with one of the contestants on American Idol, singer Paula Abdul hosts NBC’s Saturday Night Live. On the show, Abdul appears at the beginning and again during an Idol spoof, where she is played by Amy Poehler, who offers to have sex with the contestants. At the end of the skit, Abdul walks on stage to critique how they imitated the real judges Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, and, of course, herself. Abdul also introduces the night's musical guest, System of a Down. |
| 20 | years ago | 2006 | 78-year-old Fats Domino says he doesn't feel up to performing at the finale of The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, the first held since Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city and inundated Domino's 9th Ward home. Feeling ill, he got checked at a hospital just hours earlier. Doctor's couldn’t find anything wrong. Fats is driven out to the Fest afterward and gets on stage briefly to tell the crowd he is sorry he can’t perform. Lionel Richie closes the event in his stead on the same stage where earlier, New Orleans’ Queen of Soul Irma Thomas joined Paul Simon to sing the lead on Bridge Over Troubled Water with New Orleans singer-songwriter Allen Toussaint on piano. |
| 14 | years ago | 2012 | Billboard magazine reports Andre 3000 of Outkast has agreed to play Jimi Hendrix in All Is By My Side, which focuses on Hendrix's stint in England recording Are You Experienced? |