March 12

Births

1917: Leonard Chess (Founder of Chess records)

1922: Jack Kerouac (Writer)

1940: Al Jarreau (Jazz Singer)

1946: Liza Minnelli (Singer)

1948: James Taylor (Singer / Songwriter)

1949: Mike Gibbins (Drums for Badfinger)

1949: Bill Payne (Vocals & Keyborads for Little Feat)

1956: Steve Harris (Bass for Iron Maiden)

1957: Marlon Jackson (The Jackson 5)

1977: Ben Kenny (Bass for Incubus)

1978: Claudio Sanchez (Singer for Coheed and Cambria)

1979: Pete Doherty (Singer for The Libertines)

Events

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.

1958:  A Philadelphia court sentences Billie Holiday to one year probation for pleading guilty to heroin possession two years earlier.

1963:  Beatles perform as a trio, John Lennon is ill with a cold.

1966:  Love's 1st album is released "Love".

1968:  The Rolling Stones started recording their single ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ with new producer Jimmy Miller at Olympic studios in London.

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.

1971:  Rolling Stone Mick Jagger marries Bianca P’rez Morena de Macias.

1971: The Allman Brothers Band played the first of two nights at the Fillmore East, New York. Both show's were recorded and released as The Allman Brothers live double album, which became the groups breakthrough album.

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.

1975: The divorce of George Jones and Tammy Wynette is finalized. Wynette takes custody of their only child, Tamala, and keeps their home on Franklin Road in Nashville.

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'.

1996:  Nancy Sinatra gives her famous white go-go boots, the ones that were made for walkin', to the Beverly Hills Hard Rock Cafe.

1998:  Ska Artist Judge Dread 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: 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 gathered 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.