November 17

Births

1938: Gordon Lightfoot (Singer / Songwriter)

1942: Bob Gaudio (Keyboards for The Four Seasons)

1944: Gene Clark (Guitar & Vocals for The Byrds)

1946: Martin Barre (Guitar for Jethro Tull)

1957: Jim Babjak (Guitar for The Smithereens)

1960: RuPaul (Singer)

1966: Jeff Buckley (Singer / Songwriter)

1967: Ronald Devoe (Singer in New Edition & Bell-Biv-DeVoe)

Events

1963: Headmaster John Weightman of Surrey Grammar School in Guildford, England, bans the popular Beatle "moptop" haircuts, explaining that "this ridiculous style brings out the worst in boys physically. It makes them look like morons."

1963: Singer Tommy Sands joins his wife, Nancy Sinatra, to perform "Old Straw Hat" and "Hey Good Lookin'" on CBS-TV's Ed Sullivan Show.

1963: Backstage at the British ITV music program Thank Your Lucky Stars, the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger and Keith Richards present Gene Pitney with one of their first songs, "My Only Girl." Retitled "That Girl Belongs To Yesterday," it would be a hit for Pitney on both sides of the ocean, the first Jagger/Richards composition to make the US charts, and the first UK hit for the pair. Later, the Stones themselves record the song, but their version is never released.

1967: Davy Jones of the Monkees opens a boutique called Zilch I, named after a Monkees song, in New York's Greenwich Village.

1974: ABBA play their first gig outside Sweden, opening at the Kalkonerteater in Copenhagen on their first European tour.

1976: Olivia-Newton John's first TV special, A Very Special Olivia Newton-John, is broadcast on ABC.

1978: During Bob Dylan's show at the San Diego Sports Arena, an audience member throws a silver Christian cross onstage, which the singer picks up and pockets. Perhaps coincidentally, Dylan enters his "Christian period" the next year.

1979: The Guinness Book of World Records verifies ABBA as the biggest-selling recording group in history.

1979: Jethro Tull bass player John Glascock died at the age of 28, as a result of a congenital heart defect.

1980: The annual "Royal Command Performance" in London features Aretha Franklin and Sammy Davis Jr. singing for England's Queen Elizabeth II.

1990: While speeding without a helmet, David Crosby crashes his Harley-Davidson motorcycle in Los Angeles, breaking his shoulder, left leg, and ankle.

1992: Former members of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers Jimmy Merchant and Herman Santiago, are awarded four million dollars in back royalties from a music publisher for their 1956 hit "Why Do Fools Fall In Love?"

1999: Mariah Carey was forced to abandon a performance on Rome's historic Spanish Steps after crowds of tourists swamped her. She took shelter in a local shop before being given a police escort to safety.

2000: Cher makes her first appearance on NBC-TV's sitcom Will and Grace, in the episode "Gypsies, Tramps and Weed."

2000: ABC-TV airs the documentary The Beatles: Revolution.

2003: After collapsing on stage during a concert in London, Meat Loaf is rushed to a nearby hospital with what a publicist terms "exhaustion due to a prolonged viral infection" but what is actually an irregular heartbeat requiring emergency surgery.

2003: 21 year-old Britney Spears became the youngest singer to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The only other performer to get a Hollywood star at her age was Little House on the Prairie actress Melissa Gilbert.