| 79 | years ago | 1946 | Joyce Vincent-Wilson of Tony Orlando & Dawn is born. |
| 76 | years ago | 1949 | AC/DC's Cliff Williams is born. |
| 66 | years ago | 1959 | Billboard reports in the wake of the government's payola investigations, the pay-for-play phenomenon has all but ceased in Philadelphia, to name a major U.S. city. “You can't even buy the disc jockeys lunch,” complains one disgruntled Philadelphia record distributor. |
| 66 | years ago | 1959 | A report by the Ohio State University Research Center states that though rock & roll is the overwhelming favorite of 14 to 18 year olds, more adults aged 19 to 70 list it as their least favorite form of music. |
| 62 | years ago | 1963 | Dinah Washington dies of an overdose of sleeping pills in Detroit. She started as a church pianist before singing jazz with Lionel Hampton's band. From the late '40s and into the '60s, she sang a wide variety of stuff from blues to country to pop in a rich, elegant voice, and she had a bunch of R&B and pop hits. Dinah Washington was 39. |
| 58 | years ago | 1967 | Dick Clark announces that he is making a film about hippies, The Love Children, which stars Jack Nicholson, Dean Stockwell, and Susan Strasberg, and features the music of Strawberry Alarm Clock and the Seeds. |
| 57 | years ago | 1968 | Tommy James and the Shondells' Crimson & Clover is released. |
| 57 | years ago | 1968 | Iron Butterfly's epic In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida goes gold. |
| 53 | years ago | 1972 | Alexander's department store in New York stays open especially late so Alice Cooper, wearing silver pants and a “Paul Lives” button, can do his Christmas shopping. |
| 53 | years ago | 1972 | Ringo Starr's film about U.K. rocker Marc Bolan, Born to Boogie, debuts in London. |
| 51 | years ago | 1974 | Styx's Lady is released. |
| 51 | years ago | 1974 | David Crosby and Graham Nash perform together in San Francisco at a benefit concert for the United Farm Workers and Project Jonah, a whale protection media project. |
| 48 | years ago | 1977 | Saturday Night Fever premieres in New York City. The flick is instrumental in spreading the disco craze throughout the country. The soundtrack is full of recent and soon-to-be dance hits by the Bee Gees, the Trammps, Kool & the Gang, MFSB, K.C. & the Sunshine Band, and Yvonne Elliman. It will be one of the biggest-selling albums of all time. |
| 45 | years ago | 1980 | At Yoko Ono's request, at 2 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, John Lennon fans around the world mourn him with ten minutes of silent prayer. In New York, over 100,000 people converge in Central Park in tribute, and in Liverpool, a crowd of 30,000 gatherers outside of St. George's Hall on Lime Street. |
| 40 | years ago | 1985 | James Taylor marries actress Kathryn Walker. |
| 39 | years ago | 1986 | Elton John records a live version of Candle in the Wind in Australia with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. The song is released as a single and hits #6 on the chart. |
| 26 | years ago | 1999 | Lynyrd Skynyrd cancels a show in Odessa, Texas after bassist Leon Wilkeson is rushed to the hospital for intestinal and urinary tract infections. |
| 26 | years ago | 1999 | Paul McCartney, along with Pink Floyd's David Gilmour and Deep Purple's Ian Paice, performs at the Cavern Club for the first time since his days with The Beatles. The concert is broadcast live over the Internet and attracts 50 million hits. A young fan, who changed his name to John Lennon, wins a ticket to the show. |
| 19 | years ago | 2006 | The prosecuter in a court hearing says a chauffeur for John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, threatened to release embarassing recordings and photographs of her and warned he would have her killed unless she paid him $2 million. |
| 15 | years ago | 2010 | Michael, a 10-song CD by Michael Jackson is posthumously released. The first single from it, Hold My Hand, was released on the Internet about a week earlier. |
| 7 | years ago | 2018 | Shreveport, Louisiana native and bassist Joe Osborn dies of pancreatic cancer. Joe was part of a Los Angeles-based group of studio musicians known as “The Wrecking Crew.” He played on countless hit records, including 16 #1 hits, starting with Ricky Nelson’s Travelin’ Man in 1961. |