| 90 | years ago | 1935 | John Phillips, guitarist and vocalist for The Mama's & The Papa's, is born. |
| 66 | years ago | 1959 | Bobby Darin's Mack the Knife debuts on the pop charts. The song from the Three Penny Opera will be Darin's biggest hit. |
| 57 | years ago | 1968 | The Beatles' Hey Jude is released. |
| 56 | years ago | 1969 | The 3-day Texas International Pop Festival opens at the Dallas International Motor Speedway. Performers include Chicago Transit Authority, Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, and Santana. |
| 53 | years ago | 1972 | John Lennon and Yoko Ono play their One To One concert at New York's Madison Square Garden. It was to benefit retarded children. They are joined by Stevie Wonder and Roberta Flack to sing Give Peace A Chance during the finale. |
| 52 | years ago | 1973 | After two so-so albums, the post-Jim Morrison Doors break up. Rolling Stone reports Ray Manzarek is back in L.A. putting a new group together. |
| 50 | years ago | 1975 | James Taylor's How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) peaks at #5 on the pop singles chart. |
| 45 | years ago | 1980 | Pat Benatar's You Better Run peaks at #42 on the pop singles chart. |
| 45 | years ago | 1980 | Roger Daltry's McVicar soundtrack album enters the chart. |
| 45 | years ago | 1980 | Cher makes one of her unannounced visits. This time it's as lead singer with Black Rose, the band led by her former love, guitarist Les Dudek. It happens at a show in New York's Central Park. |
| 44 | years ago | 1981 | The Rolling Stones release their Tattoo You LP. The album would go on to top the LP chart for 9 weeks and has sold over 3 million copies. |
| 39 | years ago | 1986 | Steve Winwood's Higher Love hits #1 on the singles chart; Mick Jagger's Ruthless People peaks at #51 and David Lee Roth's Yankee Rose peaks at #16. |
| 36 | years ago | 1989 | Then Guns 'n' Roses guitarist Izzy Stradlin is arrested for creating a disturbance on an airline flight. |
| 32 | years ago | 1993 | Billy Joel is the first musical guest on CBS-TV's The Late Show with David Letterman. |
| 30 | years ago | 1995 | James Taylor and ex-wife Carly Simon reunite for their first concert together in 16 years on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. |
| 20 | years ago | 2005 | Starbucks Coffee Company releases an exclusive CD of 10 Bob Dylan recordings from New York’s Gaslight Café in 1962 when Dylan was just getting started as a singer-songwriter. It includes the earliest known recordings of A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall and Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright, plus folk standards Barbara Allen and The Cuckoo. |
| 18 | years ago | 2007 | Kentwood, Louisiana native Britney Spears releases Gimme More as the first single from her fifth album, Danja. The song peaks at #3 in the Billboard Hot 100. |
| 14 | years ago | 2011 | Billboard.biz reports New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne's Tha Carter IV is on track to sell nearly a million copies in a week, despite mostly thumbs-down reviews. Wayne's performance at the MTV Video Music Awards a few nights earlier when the album was released caused the audience to go crazy, though, no doubt helping sales. |