April 29

Births

1899: Duke Ellington (Composer & Bandleader)

1903: Bob Hope

1928: Carl Gardner (The Coasters)

1936: Sylvia Vanderpool (Mickey and Sylvia)

1942: Sir Monti Rock III (Singer in Disco Tex and his Sex-O-Lettes)

1942: Klaus Voorman (Bass for Manfred Mann & The Plastic Ono Band)

1945: Tammi Terrell (R&B Singer)

1945: Gary Brooker (Singer & Piano in Procol Harum)

1947: Tommy James (Singer in The Shondells)

1949: Francis Rossi (Guitar & Vocals in Status Quo)

1950: Joey Levine (Singer in Ohio Express, Reunion)

1955: Mike Porcaro (Bass player in Toto)

1960: Phil King (Bass for Lush)

1968: Carnie Wilson (Wilson Phillips)

1970: Master P (Rapper)

1973: Mike Hogan (Bass for The Cranberries)

1981: Tom Smith (Bass guitarist for Editors)

Events

1942: Bing Crosby recorded "White Christmas".

1958: Little Anthony and the Imperials recorded "Tears On My Pillow".

1959: Herndon Stadium in Atlanta holds one of the first outdoor rock concerts, featuring Ray Charles, Jimmy Reed, and B.B. King. Nine thousand people attend.

1967: The 14 hour Technicolour Dream benefit party for The International Times was held at Alexandra Palace in London. Seeing the event mentioned on TV, John Lennon called his driver and went to the show. Coincidentally, Yoko Ono was one of the performers. Other acts to appear included The Flies, Pink Floyd, Arthur Brown, The Move and Susie Creamcheese.

1967: Aretha Franklin's single "Respect" was released.

1971: Three dozen audiences members attending today's Grateful Dead show at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom are treated for hallucinations after drinking apple juice purposefully spiked with LSD (some say by the band themselves).

1972: After seeing his protest song "Give Ireland Back To The Irish" banned by the BBC for its content, Paul McCartney puckishly rush releases a version of the nursery rhyme "Mary Had A Little Lamb" as the followup. In the US, where no one is in on the joke, it actually makes it to #28.

1973: The Byrds officially disband for good (or so it seems) when founder and leader Roger McGuinn performs his first solo concert at New York's Academy of Music.

1973: John Denver began a weekly live UK BBC 2 TV special, 'The John Denver Show'.

1973: Mike Oldfield released the Album Tubular Bells.

1975: The Osmonds' appearance at Wembley Pool in London sets off a riot amongst fans.

1976: After a gig in Memphis Bruce Springsteen took a cab to Elvis Presley's Graceland home and proceeded to climb over the wall. A guard took him to be another crank fan and apprehended him

1977: Elvis leaves his show in Baltimore, MD for a full half-hour, angering and bewildering fans.

1980: Black Sabbath began their first tour with vocalist Ronnie James Dio, who had replaced Ozzy Osbourne.

1983: KISS play their last concert in their traditional makeup (although, reformed with all original members, they would return to the painted faces in 1996).

1987: Michael Jackson's reputed offer of $50,000 for the bones of John Merrick, the infamous "Elephant Man," is first made public.

1988: Eric Clapton filed for a divorce from Patti "Layla" Boyd.

1989: John Cipollina (Guitarist for Quicksilver Messenger Service) died on from chronic emphysema at the age of 45.

1989: Elvis Presley's first grandchild, Danielle Riley Keough, is born to Lisa Marie Presley.

1990: Floyd Butler of The Friends of Distinction, died of a heart attack at the age of 49. Had the US No.3 single ‘Grazing In The Grass’ in 1969.

1992: After the recent AIDS-related death of lead singer Freddie Mercury, the Queen song "We Are The Champions" is banned from the graduation ceremony at Sacred Heart private school in Clifton, NJ.

1992: Singer Paula Abdul and actor Emilio Estevez were married in a judge's chambers in Santa Monica, California. One of Abdul's managers and Estevez's mother witnessed the ceremony. Abdul filed for divorce two years later.

1993: Guitarist, producer, Mick Ronson died of liver cancer aged 46. Ronson recorded and toured with David Bowie from 1970 to 1973.

1993: An animated Barry White was a guest on "The Simpsons."

1995: Rapper Tupac Shakur married Keisha Morris inside the Clinton Correctional Facility, where he was serving a four-year jail term for sex abuse.

1998: Steven Tyler broke his knee at a concert in Anchorage, Alaska delaying Aerosmith's 'Nine Lives' tour and necessitating camera angle adjustments for the filming of the video for 'I Don't Want to Miss a Thing.'

1999: Tommy Lee announced that he had quit Motley Crue to devote time to his new band, Methods of Mayhem, and his family.

1999: Photographers taking shots of old cars wrecked at the bottom of Malibu's Decker Canyon discover the body of Iron Butterfly bassist Philip Kramer, who had gone missing on February 12, 1995. His death is ruled a suicide.

2003: A $5 million lawsuit against former Creedence Clearwater Revival leader John Fogerty was dismissed after a personal-injury lawyer claimed that he suffered hearing loss in his left ear from attending a Fogerty concert. The Judge said the plaintiff assumed the risk of hearing damage when he attended the concert in 1997.