| 90 | years ago | 1936 | Singer Hank Snow makes his first recordings, Lonesome Blue Yodel and Prisoned Cowboy. |
| 82 | years ago | 1944 | Denny Laine, vocalist and guitarist for the Moody Blues and Wings, is born. |
| 80 | years ago | 1946 | Peter Green, guitarist and vocalist with Fleetwood Mac, is born. |
| 71 | years ago | 1955 | Little Richard's Tutti Frutti backed with I'm Just a Lonely Boy, is reviewed by Billboard: ...cleverly syled novelty with nonsense words, rapid fire deliver. |
| 69 | years ago | 1957 | Buddy Holly & the Crickets Oh Boy! is put out by Brunswick Records. It peaks at #10 in December. |
| 59 | years ago | 1967 | Hair, advertised as the The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical opens off-Broadway at the Public Theater in New York's East Village. The musical will eventually move to Broadway for a successful run. The play's original cast recording album spawns hit singles Aquarius, Let the Sun Shine In and Good Morning Starshine. |
| 56 | years ago | 1970 | Neil Diamond receives a gold record for Cracklin' Rosie. |
| 55 | years ago | 1971 | In the first of tragedies for the Allman Brothers Band, leader Duane Allman is killed in a motorcycle mishap, just outside the group's hometown of Macon, Georgia. He was 24. |
| 53 | years ago | 1973 | The Who's lastest masterwork, Quadrophenia, goes gold. |
| 51 | years ago | 1975 | Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue gets under way in the 1,800-seat Memorial Auditorium in Plymouth, Massachusets. The troupe's name comes when one night while Dylan was waiting for inspiration, he heard thunder rolling across the sky. |
| 49 | years ago | 1977 | Meat Loaf releases his landmark album Bat Out Of Hell. |
| 49 | years ago | 1977 | The disco sound gets some sophistication with the debut of Chic's Dance, Dance, Dance on the R&B chart. It reaches #6 on both the R&B and pop charts. |
| 43 | years ago | 1983 | Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon becomes the longest listed album in the history of the Billboard music charts when its total reaches 491 weeks. |
| 36 | years ago | 1990 | The Byrds, LaVern Baker, John Lee Hooker, The Impressions, Wilson Pickett, Jimmy Reed and Ike & Tina Turner are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. |
| 27 | years ago | 1999 | The surviving members of The Who, Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle, reunite for the first time in two years for a concert at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas to launch Pixelon, a new Internet video company. The concert is broadcast over the web. Also performing were KISS, Tony Bennett, and the Dixie Chicks. |
| 22 | years ago | 2004 | The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association announces that Ray Charles’ first of four aircraft he owned during his career has been found in New Braunfels, Texas. The Genius bought the twin-prop Cessna 310 in 1958 to simplify his travel to concerts. The airplane's present owner says he'll restore it with the original paint scheme and “Ray Charles Enterprises” logo, fly it to shows for exhibition, then offer it to a museum. |
| 22 | years ago | 2004 | Just days before the 2004 election, free copies of Rolling Stone magazine start arriving in mailboxes wrapped in coupons offering four more free issues. On the cover is Democratic Presidential candidate Senator John F. Kerry. Inside is the John Kerry interview, and an editorial by Editor and Publisher Jann S. Wenner entitled “John Kerry For President.” Despite the offer of free magazines, Kerry loses to incumbent George W. Bush a few days later. |
| 21 | years ago | 2005 | Jefferson Starship and master of ceremonies Wavy Gravy are at the grand opening of a 600-seat amphitheater in San Francisco named in honor of Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. It’s in the neighborhood where he grew up. |
| 21 | years ago | 2005 | The white suit John Lennon wore on the cover of Abbey Road sells for $118,000 at an auction in Las Vegas. And the Austin Princess he drove in the movie Imagine goes for $150,000. The jacket Lennon wore in the movie goes to the same buyer for another $32,000. |
| 19 | years ago | 2007 | Police in Fargo, North Dakota stage a phony party at a nightclub before the Ozzy Osbourne/Rob Zombie concert at a nearby arena. They invite 500 people with outstanding warrants, and more than 30 show up and get arrested. Ozzy demands an apology from police for using his name on the invitations without permission. |
| 16 | years ago | 2010 | The 12th annual three-day music and art festival Voodoo Fest kicks off for the Halloween weekend in New Orleans' City Park. Headliners among the 100 or so bands include Muse, Weezer, Ozzy Osbourne, MGMT, My Morning Jacket, and Interpol. |