| 82 | years ago | 1944 | John Kay, guitarist and vocalist with Steppenwolf, is born. |
| 76 | years ago | 1950 | The Partridge Family’s David Cassidy is born. |
| 75 | years ago | 1951 | The late Jakson Spires, the powerhouse drummer of Blackfoot and The Southern Allstars, is born. |
| 72 | years ago | 1954 | Pat Travers is born. |
| 72 | years ago | 1954 | Bill Haley and the Comets record Rock Around the Clock for Decca Records. The song is released the following year when it's included in the film Blackboard Jungle. |
| 72 | years ago | 1954 | Joe Turner's Shake, Rattle and Roll is released. |
| 71 | years ago | 1955 | Your Hit Parade, a nationally broadcast radio program featuring the hit records of the day, celebrates its 20th anniversary. |
| 68 | years ago | 1958 | Will Sergeant of Echo & the Bunneymen is born. |
| 65 | years ago | 1961 | The winners of the third annual Grammy Awards are announced. For the first time, rock & roll is noticeably absent. The big winner is Ray Charles, who wins Best Vocal Performance, Male, Best Performance by a Pop Single Artist for Georgia on My Mind, Best Vocal Performance (Album) for The Genius of Ray Charles and Best R&B Performance for Let the Good Times Roll. |
| 64 | years ago | 1962 | Columbia Records tapes Bob Dylan's concert at Town Hall, New York City, eventually releasing the recording of Tomorrow Is a Long Time made this evening. |
| 64 | years ago | 1962 | Singer-songwriter Art Alexis of Everclear is born. |
| 63 | years ago | 1963 | Bob Dylan performs at his first major solo concert at Town Hall in New York City. Billboard's review is typical of public reaction: “Dylan...is the stuff of which legends are made...His talent will be around for a long, long time.” |
| 62 | years ago | 1964 | Amy Ray of Indigo Girls is born. |
| 60 | years ago | 1966 | Jan Berry, half of the hit-making surf-rock vocal duo Jan and Dean, runs his Corvette into an parked truck on L.A.'s Whittier Boulevard. Berry suffers total physical paralysis for over a year as well as extensive brain damage which makes it nearly impossible to return to performing. They do give it a try in 1973 but it turns out to be a fiasco. |
| 58 | years ago | 1968 | Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention perform at the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Dinner in New York City. Zappa looks down at the audience and declares the event “a load of pompous hokum...All year long you people have manufactured this crap, now for one night you're gonna have to listen to it!” Zappa later remarks, “We played the ugliest shit we could...That's what they expected us to play.” |
| 58 | years ago | 1968 | Life magazine does a piece on the Doors called Wicked Go the Doors. Jim Morrison, reports writer Fred Powledge, “is 24 years old, out of U.C.L.A., and he appears in public and on his records to be moody, temperamental, enchanted in the mind, and extremely stoned on something.” |
| 57 | years ago | 1969 | Simon & Garfunkel's The Boxer is released. |
| 56 | years ago | 1970 | Singer Nicholas Hexum of 311 is born. |
| 55 | years ago | 1971 | Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's live Four Way Street album is certified gold even before it hits the LP chart. The double record set makes it to #1, giving the quartet the distinction of two #1 albums in two tries. It's the last LP the four will record together until 1988's American Dream. |
| 53 | years ago | 1973 | Rolling Stone reports a Buffalo Springfield reunion may be in the works. Says original member Richie Furay now with Poco, “It's all up to Neil right now.” Stephen Stills has given his consent, as has the original bassist Bruce Palmer and drummer Dewey Martin. The reunion doesn't happen. |
| 51 | years ago | 1975 | The movie version of The Who's rock opera Tommy opens starring Roger Daltry as Tommy Walker, and Elton John as the Pinball Wizard. Ann-Margret, Eric Clapton, John Entwistle, Keith Moon, Jack Nicholson, Pete Townshend, Tina Turner, and Arthur Brown also appear. |
| 51 | years ago | 1975 | Linda Ronstadt's When Will I Be Loved is released. |
| 49 | years ago | 1977 | The Marshall Tucker Band's Heard It In A Love Song is released. |
| 48 | years ago | 1978 | Coldplay’s Guy Berryman is born. |
| 47 | years ago | 1979 | The former vocalist with Elvin Bishop, Mickey Thomas, replaces Marty Balin as lead singer with Jefferson Starship. |
| 47 | years ago | 1979 | Poco receives a gold record for Legend, their 12th LP. |
| 40 | years ago | 1986 | Go-Go's lead singer Belinda Carlisle marries actor Morgan Mason. |
| 37 | years ago | 1989 | Herbert Mills of the Mills Brothers dies of viral meningitis. He was 77 years old. |
| 36 | years ago | 1990 | James Brown is released from a South Carolina jail on work furlough after serving 15 months of a six-year sentence for various drug charges. |
| 33 | years ago | 1993 | Actress Lisa Bonet files for divorce from Lenny Kravitz. |
| 29 | years ago | 1997 | The Fugees play the first of two homecoming concerts in Haiti to raise money for Haitian refugees. The concerts end up costing more than they raised. |
| 26 | years ago | 2000 | Metallica files suit against Napster, Inc, Yale University, the University of Southern California, and Indiana University for copyright infringement. Napster's computer software allows users to trade MP3 music formats for free. Yale and Indiana are dropped from the suit after they block access to Napster on campus servers. |
| 21 | years ago | 2005 | 23-year-old Kentwood, Louisiana native Britney Spears announces on her Web site that she and husband Kevin Federline are expecting a baby. |