August 20

Births

1923: Jim Reeves (Country Singer)

1927: Joya Sherrill (Jazz Singer)

1931: Paul Robi (The Platters)

1934: "Sneaky" Pete Kleinow (Steel Guitar for The Flying Burrito Brothers)

1935: Justin Tubb (Country Singer)

1941: Dave Brock (Guitar for Hawkwind)

1942: Isaac Hayes (R&B Singer)

1946: Ralf Hutter (Keyboards & Lead Singer for Kraftwerk)

1947: James Pankow (Trombone for Chicago)

1948: Robert Plant (Vocals for Led Zeppelin)

1949: Phil Lynott (Bass & Lead Vocals for Thin Lizzy)

1952: John Hiatt (Guitarist and Singer)

1966: “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott (Guitarist for Pantera)

1971: Fred Durst (Vocals for Limp Bizkit)

1979: Jamie Cullum (Jazz Singer / Songwriter)

1992: Demi Lovato (Pop Singer)

Events

1920: Detroit, MI's 8MK (today known as WWJ 950 AM) goes on the air as America's first radio station, eventually offering the first news broadcast, sports play-by-play, and religious broadcast.

1960: Connie Francis begins filming her first movie, Where The Boys Are, in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. The first college teen comedy to really explore the sex lives of its characters, it served as the inspiration for countless "spring break" movies, as well as the homage/parody Grease.

1967: Today's New York Times reports on a new method of noise reduction developed by Ray Dolby of Dolby Labs, a modified version of the original "Dolby" process already at use in studios. This one, named "Dolby B," would be for home recording and lead directly to the revolution in blank audio cassette tapes.

1968: Dr. David Lipscomb of the University of Tennessee reports his recent findings that guinea pigs suffered damage to the cells in their cochlea (inner ear) when exposed to 120 decibels of rock music over three months. Lipscomb would later recant his findings after noticing that very few rock musicians seemed to suffer similar damage.

1968: Bobby Darin, still traumatized by the recent assassination of his good friend, Senator Robert Kennedy, sells off his music publishing and production company, TM Music, for one million dollars.

1969: The four members of the Beatles gather in the Abbey Road studios in London for the last time as they complete work on "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" and ostensibly finalize the track order and mastering of their last recorded album, Abbey Road. (Three of the Beatles would later be present in the studio to overdub salvaged tracks from the Let It Be sessions.)

1969: Frank Zappa disbanded the Mothers of Invention right after an eight-day tour in Canada. Zappa said that he was "tired of playing for people who clap for all the wrong reasons."

1974: David Allan Coe records "the perfect country & western song," "You Never Even Called Me By My Name," at Nashville's Columbia Studio A, namechecking Waylon Jennings, Charley Pride, Merle Haggard and songwriter Steve Goodman in the process.

1979: Rod Stewart and his first wife, Alana Hamilton, become the proud parents of their first child, Kimberly.

1987: Lindsey Buckingham, who had helped turn Fleetwood Mac into one of the biggest-selling groups of the Seventies, leaves the group after refusing to tour behind its latest album, Tango In The Night.

1987: Alabama dedicates a section of its Interstate 65 highway as the Hank Williams Memorial Lost Highway, a reference to one of his best-known songs. The fifty-mile stretch begins near his hometown of Georgiana and runs north to Montgomery, where he is buried.

1992: A US Doctor filed a $35m lawsuit against the Southwest Bell phone company. He alleged that his wife died because he could not reach 911 due to all lines being jammed by demand of Garth Brooks concert tickets.

1992: Singer Sting weds Trudie Styler.

1996: Snoop Doggy Dogg settled out of court with the Woldemariam family in a wrongful death suit that the family brought against the rapper three years earlier. Twenty-year-old Phillip Woldemariam was shot and killed by Snoop Doggy Dogg's body guard from the back of a moving car which the rapper himself drove. The two claimed the shooting occurred in self-defense.

2001: The remaining dates of Foo Fighters European tour was cancelled when drummer Taylor Hawkins was admitted to a hospital.

2003: In Rhode Island, OSHA fined Derco LLC, which operated The Station club, $85,200 for one "willful" violation and six serious violations related to the February 20 fire that killed 100 and injured almost 200. Great White was fined $7,000 for failing to protect employees from fire hazards.