| 76 | years ago | 1949 | Paul Rodgers of Free and Bad Company is born. |
| 70 | years ago | 1955 | With Only You at #2, the Platters' The Great Pretender enters the R&B chart at #13. |
| 70 | years ago | 1955 | Tennessee Ernie Ford's Sixteen Tons tops both the pop and country & western charts. |
| 69 | years ago | 1956 | Mike Mills, bass player for R.E.M., is born. |
| 68 | years ago | 1957 | Bobby Helms' Jingle Bell Rock enters the pop chart for the first time. It re-enters in December 1958, 1960, 1961, and 1962. |
| 59 | years ago | 1966 | The Four Tops' Standing in the Shadows of Love enter the Hot 100. In its ten weeks on the charts, the tune peaks at #6. It also reaches #2 on the R&B chart. |
| 58 | years ago | 1967 | John Fred & His Playboy Band record Judy in Disguise (With Glasses) in New Orleans with the Fats Domino band. It's a parody of The Beatles’ Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds. A month later, Judy in Disguise, replaces another Beatles tune, Hello Goodbye at the top of the Billboard chart. |
| 55 | years ago | 1970 | The Beach Boys play a command performance for Princess Margaret at London's Royal Albert Hall. |
| 48 | years ago | 1977 | Elvis Costello and the Attractions appear on NBC-TV Saturday Night Live in place of the Sex Pistols, who can't get a visa to enter the country. Producer Lorne Michaels refuses to allow Costello to perform Radio, Radio (because of the song's criticism of the broadcasting industry), but a few measures into Less than Zero, Costello halts his group and goes into Radio, Radio. He will never be invited back to appear on the show. |
| 43 | years ago | 1982 | The Who play what is the “last concert of our farewell tour” at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens. The show is simulcasted around America on pay-per-view satellite-cable TV to closed-circuit arena outlets. The video rights are sold to Home Box Office and video-cassettes of the event will be sold later. |
| 39 | years ago | 1986 | The Doobie Brothers reunite for a benefit in Palo Alto, CA. The performance inspires a reunion tour in 1987. |
| 39 | years ago | 1986 | Paul and Linda McCartney's limo catches fire en route to a TV taping in Newcastle, England. They are both unhurt. |
| 31 | years ago | 1994 | Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora marries Heather Locklear. |
| 26 | years ago | 1999 | Rolling Stone Keith Richards steals a guitar from an autograph seeker outside his birthday party at a the Russian Tea Room in New York City. The owner of the guitar decides not to press charges saying, “It's Keith, man.” |