Births
1919: Art Blakey (Jazz Drummer)
1932: Dottie West (Dorothy Marsh) (Country Singer)
1946: Daryl Hall (Singer, Guitar & Keyboards for Hall and Oates)
1962: Andy McCoy (Antti Hulkko) (Lead Guitar for Hanoi Rocks)
1971: MC Lyte (Lana Michele Moorer) (Rapper)
Events
1960: Aretha Franklin delivers her first stage performance tonight, at New York's famed Village Vanguard.
1963: French singer Edith Piaf died of liver cancer at age 47 at Plascassier, on the French Riviera.
1965: Gerry Marsden of Gerry and the Pacemakers marries his first wife, Pauline Behan -- the former secretary of his fan club!
1967: CBS presents Barbra Streisand's third television special, The Belle Of 14th Street, also starring Jason Robards.
1969: Muddy Waters is severely injured in a car crash just outside Chicago that leaves three other passengers dead. Waters will remain absent from music for about a year, and will rarely stand up on stage again.
1970: Elvis Presley is made an honorary "special" deputy sheriff of Bel Air, CA.
1975: The very first musical guest on the new NBC-TV series Saturday Night (later Saturday Night Live) is Janis Ian, who performs her hit "At Seventeen."
1986: Janet Jackson started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'When I Think Of You', her first US No.1.
1990: Drummer Dave Grohl played his first gig with Nirvana when they appeared at the North Shore Surf Club in Olympia.
1991: Apple Computers settles their first trademark lawsuit against the Beatles' Apple Corps for a paltry $29 million, an issue that the Beatles' handlers would open back up when the Internet made music sales possible on computers.
1995: Tupac Shakur was released from Clinton Correctional Prison on $1.4 Million bail which was posted by Suge Knight. In return 2Pac signed a three album deal with Knight's Death Row Records.
1999: Deborah Rowe, Michael Jackson's first wife and the former nurse at his plastic surgeon's office, files for divorce from the singer.
1999: Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee was released on $5000 bail after facing charges relating to a riot at a gig in North Carolina in 1997. Lee allegedly incited the crowd to attack a guard and had also poured a drink over his head.
2005: Rod Stewart received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame to honor a career spanning more than 40 years.
2006: Madonna adopted a one-year-old boy in Malawi, Africa, the boy's father, Yohane Banda, told reporters "I know he will be very happy in America." The boy’s mother had died a week after he was born.
2009: Barbra Streisand went to No.1 on the US album charts with ‘Love Is the Answer’. Streisand's ninth No.1 album, making her the only artist to have a number one album in America in five different decades.
2009: 54-year-old Jo Wood, wife of The Rolling Stones' Ronnie Wood, was granted a divorce after 24 years of marriage on the grounds of adultery. The couple split in 2008 after the guitarist, 64, began a relationship with a 20-year-old woman.