76 years ago (1948) | Cyril Neville of New Orleans' Neville Brothers is born. |
69 years ago (1955) | Former Van Halen vocalist David Lee Roth is born. |
62 years ago (1962) | The BBC bans Bobby “Boris” Pickett's Monster Mash. Although the tune is neither obscene or controversial, it's about a horror-movie-star record hop. Monster Mash, like many other songs, is banned under a catch-all regulation prohibiting the broadcast of anything deemed “offensive.” |
60 years ago (1964) | The Shangri-Las' Leader Of The Pack is released. |
59 years ago (1965) | The Supremes make the first of many appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show. |
57 years ago (1967) | Mike Malinin of Goo Goo Dolls is born. |
54 years ago (1970) | The running race between Vice President Spiro Agnew and FCC Commissioner Johnson continues: Johnson, in response to Agnew's charge that rock music drives young people to drugs, plays rock music during a speech, saying that Agnew would do well to listen to song lyrics to understand what's happening around the U.S. |
54 years ago (1970) | Smokey Robinson & The Miracles' Tears Of A Clown is released. |
48 years ago (1976) | The Who and the Grateful Dead play the second of two back-to-back shows at Oakland Stadium for Bill Graham's Days on the Green series. Neither of the shows sell out. |
46 years ago (1978) | After three uneven albums of Sixties influenced jams, San Francisco-based Journey gets Steve Perry as its new lead singer. Infinity is Journey's most successful album and turns platinum on this date. |
46 years ago (1978) | Singer Steve Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry of Aerosmith are injured in Philadelphia when a cherry bomb is thrown on stage. From then on, the group performs from behind a cyclone fence. |
45 years ago (1979) | The Rose, starring Bette Midler as a rock singer, (transparently based on Janis Joplin) premieres in Los Angeles. |
45 years ago (1979) | The city of Los Angeles declares “Fleetwood Mac Day,” giving the group its own star on Hollywood Boulevard's Walk of Fame, right in front of legendary lingerie emporium Frederick's of Hollywood. |
43 years ago (1981) | Earth, Wind & Fire's Let's Groove enters the soul chart, where it stays for 22 weeks, peaking at #1 and staying there for eleven weeks. On the pop chart, the song makes it to #3. |
40 years ago (1984) | Pop singer Cherie is born. |
32 years ago (1992) | Guns 'n' Roses guitarist Slash marries model Renne Suran. |