Birthdays
1917: Leonard Chess (Founder of Chess records)
1922: Jack Kerouac
1938: Lew Dewitt (The Statler Brothers)
1940: Al Jarreau
1946: Liza Minnelli
1948: James Taylor
1949: Mike Gibbins (Badfinger)
1949: Bill Payne (Little Feat)
1956: Steve Harris (Iron Maidern)
1957: Marlon Jackson (The Jackson 5)
1977: Ben Kenny (Incubus)
1979: Pete Doherty (The Libertines)
Events
1953: Popular WDIA disc jockey Rufus Thomas signs with an upstart Memphis label called Sun Records in order to release a song called "Bear Cat," an answer record to Big Mama Thornton's hit "Hound Dog."
1955: Jazz gets a huge boost into the mainstream of American society -- again -- when Dave Brubeck and his group perform a triumphant concert at New York's Carnegie Hall.
1955: American jazz saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker died of a heart attack in New York City while watching Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra on television. He was 34. The coroner who performed his autopsy mistakenly estimated Parker's 34-year-old body to be between 50 and 60 years of age. (After years of drug and alcohol abuse).
1957: Buddy Holly & The Crickets recorded "Maybe Baby.
1958: A Philadelphia court sentences Billie Holiday to one year probation for pleading guilty to heroin possession two years earlier.
1959: Fabian is named "Most Promising New Talent" in an American Bandstand viewers poll.
1963: Beatles perform as a trio, John Lennon is ill with a cold
1965: In the Bahamas, the Beatles wrap up filming on their second movie, Help!.
1966: Love's 1st album released "Love"
1968: The Rolling Stones started recording their single ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ with new producer Jimmy Miller at Olympic studios in London
1969: Elvis begins filming his thirty-first and last fictional film, Change Of Habit, in which, as a ghetto doctor, he accidentally seduces a nun played by Mary Tyler Moore. Only four songs appear in the film, one of which is a Memphis session recording, "Rubberneckin'."
1969: Infamous London police officer Det. Sgt. Norman Pilcher, well-known for singling out and busting rock stars, enters George Harrison's house in Esher, Surrey, England and arrests the Beatle and his wife Pattie for possession of marijuana (specifically, cannabis resin). That same morning, Paul McCartney marries girlfriend Linda Eastman at the register office in Marylebone, London and again at the Anglican church in St. John's Wood. No other Beatles attend.
1969: At tonight's Grammy Awards ceremonies, the big winners are Simon and Garfunkel, who win Record of the Year for "Mrs. Robinson," and Glen Campbell, who wins Album of the Year for By The Time I Get To Phoenix.
1971: Paul McCartney's lawsuit dissolving the Beatles is upheld when a London court grants his request to appoint a non-biased receiver to handle the group's business affairs in the wake of the band's management dispute.
1971: Rolling Stone Mick Jagger marries Bianca P’rez Morena de Macias
1974: During his infamous "Lost Weekend," John Lennon attends the Smothers Brothers comedy show at the Troubadour in Los Angeles with singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson. A drunk Nilsson begins to heckle the brothers, thinking he's helping the show, and a drunken John helps him do it. Both are thrown out.
1981: Bow Wow Wow were forced to cancel the first dates of a UK tour after Greater London Council stated that singer Annabella Lwin aged 15 would be guilty of truancy.
1983: U2 scored their first UK No.1 album with 'War', which went on to spend a total of 147 weeks on the chart. The album featured the singles 'New Years Day' and 'Two Hearts Beat As One'.
1991: The R.E.M. album "Out of Time" was released.
1994: Swedish group Ace Of Base started a six week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'The Sign'.
1996: Nancy Sinatra gives her famous white go-go boots, the ones that were made for walkin', to the Beverly Hills Hard Rock Cafe.
1996: The album "Unplugged" was released by KISS.
1998: Judge Dread (Ska Artist) died due to heart attack as he walked off stage.
1998: Korn served a cease-and-desist demand to a Michigan assistant principal, the high school and the school district who suspended a student for wearing a T-shirt that had the band's name on it.
2001: Judy Garland's 'Over The Rainbow' was voted the Song Of The Century in a poll published in America. Musicians, critics and fans compiled the list by the RIA.
2003: On the eve of the Rolling Stones' first tour of China, the Chinese government provides the group with a list of provocative songs the group is prohibited from playing, including "Brown Sugar," “Beast Of Burden”, "Honky Tonk Women," and "Let's Spend The Night Together."
2007: The Ronettes are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in New York City.
2007: Disappointed with his share of the profits from a cell phone commercial that was authorized to use the group's famous 1968 hit "The Weight," The Band's Levon Helm sues Cingular, the commercial's creator.
2008: An all-Beatles-song episode of FOX-TV's American Idol, seven years in the making, draws an estimated 31 million viewers
2009: Hundreds of fans queued at the O2 arena in London as Michael Jackson tickets went on sale to the public. The 50-year-old pop veteran had confirmed he would be playing a 50-date residency at the venue, beginning on 8 July 2009. Some 360,000 pre-sale tickets had already sold. Organisers said the This Is It tour had become the fastest-selling in history, with 33 seats sold each minute.
2010: Over 130 people were arrested and eight people were hospitalised as fans tried to gatecrash a Metallica show in Colombia. 1,500 police and four tanks were brought in to manage the crowds as property was vandalized and destroyed, as thousands of ticketless fans rioted during Metallica’s first Colombian concert in eleven years.
