April 13

Birthdays

1906: Bud Freeman (Tenor Sax Player)

1934: Horace Kay (The Tams)

1940: Lester Chambers (The Chambers Brothers)

1942: Bill Conti (Composed “Rocky” Theme)

1944: Jack Casady (Bass for Jefferson Airplane)

1945: Lowell George (Guitarist for Little Feat)

1946: Al Green (R&B Singer)

1946: Roy Loney (Guitar & Vocals for The Flamin' Groovies)

1951: Max Weinberg (Drummer for The E Street Band)

1951: Peabo Bryson (R&B Singer)

1954: Jimmy Destri (Keyboards for Blondie)

1955: Louis Johnson (Bass for The Brothers Johnson)

1957: Wayne Lewis (Atlantic Starr)

1961: Butch Taylor (Keyboards for Dave Matthews Band)

1962: Hillel Slovak (Guitar for The Red Hot Chili Peppers)

1966: Marc Ford (The Black Crowes)

1972: Aaron Lewis (Vocals for Staind)

1975: Lou Bega (Singer)

Events

1962: The Beatles begin their legendary stint at the new Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany. Performing three to four hours a night for 48 days (with only one day off), the group logs a total of 172 hours of performance. When they return to England, they're already stars with a recording contract.

1963: The Beach Boys released "Surfin' USA".

1965: At tonight's Grammy ceremonies in Los Angeles, Roger Miller is the big winner, taking home five awards (a first for a country artist at the Grammys) Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto win Record of the Year for "The Girl From Ipanema" and Album of the Year for Getz/Gilberto. The Beatles win Best New Artist and Best Performance by a Vocal Group for "A Hard Day's Night."

1965: The Beatles recorded "Help!"

1967: The Rolling Stones play their first-ever gig behind the "Iron Curtain" of Soviet countries with a performance in Warsaw. When the club is overrun by kids without tickets, the local police react by dispersing the crowd with tear gas.

1968: Bobby Goldsboro started a five week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Honey'.

1969: Diana Ross makes her first television appearance as a solo act, performing on Dinah Shore's NBC special Like Hep.

1970: Led Zeppelin became the first band to sell out the Montreal Forum.

1973: Roger Daltrey (The Who) released his first solo album "Daltrey."

1971: The Rolling Stones released 'Brown Sugar' the first record on their own label, Rolling Stones Records, which introduces the infamous licking- tongue and lips logo.

1979: Five days into Van Halen's latest tour, David Lee Roth collapsed from exhaustion on stage at Spokane Coliseumin, Washington.

1980: After $8 million in ticket sales and 3,883 performances, a record run for the time (not to mention one major motion picture), the Fifties musical Grease closes on Broadway.

1982: Still awaiting trial on a concealed weapon and illegal drug possession charge three weeks earlier, David Crosby is again arrested in Dallas after local police find him preparing a "speedball" of cocaine backstage before a show.

1985:  "The Grand Ole Opry" debuted on television.

1993: the first ‘Aerosmith Day’ was observed in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts after the band were given their very own holiday.

1994: After nine years of a very public marriage, Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley announce they have separated. They will divorce later in the year.

1995: In the summer of 1994 Burl Ives was diagnosed with oral cancer after being hospitalized for back surgery. After several operations he decided against having further surgery. In April 1995 he fell into a coma. Ives died of complications of mouth cancer on April 13, 1995 and is interred in Mound Cemetery in Hunt City Township, Jasper County, Illinois.

1996: Rage Against The Machine appeared on NBC's Saturday Night Live. Their two-song performance was cut to one song when the band attempted to hang inverted American flags from their amplifiers.

2000: Gavin Rossdale (Bush) collapsed at the end of a show in Los Angeles. Tests were planned even though he was feeling much better the next day.

2003: The Beatles Apple Corp company was listed as Britain's fastest profit-growth firm with an annual profit growth of 194%.

2003: Madonna struck back at web sites who were offering illegal downloads of her new album, ‘American Life’ by flooding file-sharing networks with decoy files. When the files were opened they were greeted by the voice of Madonna asking, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" The latest Madonna album has been kept under tight wraps to avoid piracy, with promotional copies being held back from journalists until just before the official release.

2008: Cult '60s Detroit Soul hero Nathaniel Mayer collapses from the brain hemorrhage that will, within the year, take his life.

2008: Producer and drummer Clifford Davies, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his home in Atlanta, aged 59. Davies had worked with Ted Nugent from 1979-1982. It was reported that Davies was "extremely distraught" over outstanding medical bills.

2009: 68-year-old US music producer Phil Spector was convicted of murdering actress Lana Clarkson, after a five-month retrial. He had pleaded not guilty to the second degree murder of 40-year-old Ms Clarkson, who was shot in the mouth at Spector's home in Los Angeles. During the five-month retrial, five female acquaintances testified that Spector had threatened them at gunpoint in incidents dating back to the 1970s. An earlier trial was abandoned in 2007 after a jury failed to reach a unanimous decision. Spector was remanded in custody until sentencing on May 29, 2009.

2009:  In the UK, Procol Harum's ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ was the most played song in public places in the past 75 years, according to a chart compiled for BBC Radio 2. Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was at number two followed by 'All I Have To Do Is Dream' by the Everly Brothers. Wet Wet Wet's 1994 hit, 'Love Is All Around', was at number four followed by Bryan Adams's 1991 hit '(Everything I Do), I Do It For You.'

April 12

Birthdays

1909: Lionel Hampton (Jazz Bandleader)

1917: Helen Forrest (Jazz Vocalist)

1921: Shakey Jake Harris (Blues Singer)

1925: Ned Miller (Country Artist)

1933: Tiny Tim (Singer?????)

1938: Judy Lynn (Country Singer)

1940: Al Jarreau (Jazz Singer)

1940: Herbie Hancock (Jazz Artist)

1942: Larry Ramos (The Association)

1944: John Kay (Guitar & Vocals for Steppenwolf)

1950: David Cassidy (Singer)

1951: Alex Briley (G.I. in The Village People)

1957: Vince Gill (Country Singer)

1958: Will Sergeant (Guitarist for Echo And The Bunnymen)

1962: Art Alexakis (Guitar & Vocals for Everclear)

1964: Amy Ray (Guitar & vocals for The Indigo Girls)

1967: Sarah Cracknell (Singer for Saint Etienne)

1970: Nicholas Lofton Hexum (Vocalist & guitarist for 311)

1978: Guy Berryman (Bass for Coldplay)

1987: Brendon Urie (Singer for Panic! at the Disco)

Events

1935: "Your Hit Parade," debuts on the radio.

1939: Woody Herman recorded "Woodchopper’s Ball".

1954: Big Joe Turner released "Shake, Rattle, And Roll". Considered by many to be the song that put rock and roll on the map around the world.

1954: Bill Haley and His Comets recorded "(We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock".

1961: At tonight's Grammy ceremonies, Ray Charles takes home four awards, including a Best Male Vocal for "Georgia On My Mind."

1963: Bob Dylan performs a spectacular concert at Town Hall in New York, which is recorded for a never-released live album on Columbia.

1964: Chubby Checker marries Miss World 1962, Catharina Johanna Lodders of the Netherlands.

1966: Tom Jones enters a hospital to have his tonsils removed, though some who claim to have seen his tonsils since claim his real visit was for a nose job.

1966: In an eerie recreation of the duo's single from the year before, Jan Berry of Jan and Dean crashes his Corvette into a parked truck on Beverly Hills' Whittier Drive, near a stretch of road in Los Angeles known as "Dead Man's Curve." Berry will require four years of rehabilitation to be able to talk and a full decade in order to perform live again.

1967: Mick Jagger was punched in the face by an airport official during a row at Le Bourget Airport in France. Jagger lost his temper after The Stones were being searched for drugs resulting in them missing their flight.

1968: Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention perform at a New York dinner for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences dinner in New York. Zappa calls the event "a load of pompous hokum" and yells from the stage: "All year long you people have manufactured this crap, now for one night you're gonna have to listen to it!"

1972:  The Rolling Stones released the Album "Exile on Main Street."

1973: Stevie Wonder becomes one of the first rock stars to appear on PBS-TV's Sesame Street.

1973: The movie musical That'll Be The Day, starring Ringo Starr and David Essex, premieres in London.

1975: David Bowie announced his second career retirement, saying, 'I've rocked my roll. It's a boring dead end, there will be no more rock 'n' roll records from me.'

1975:  The movie version of The Who’s "Tommy" opened.

1975: Josephine Baker was found lying peacefully in her bed surrounded by newspapers with glowing reviews of her performance at  the Bobino in Paris—Joséphine à Bobino 1975, celebrating her 50 years in show business. She was in a coma after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage. She was taken to Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, where she died.

1979: Mickey Thomas, vocalist on the Elvin Bishop Band's 1975 hit "Fooled Around And Fell In Love," becomes the new lead vocalist for Jefferson Starship.

1985: USA for Africa's "We Are The World" album was released.

1986:  Belinda Carlisle of the Go-Go’s married Morgan Mason.

1988: Sonny Bono succeeds in his bid to become mayor of his hometown, Palm Springs, CA.

1989:  Garth Brooks' self-titled debut album was released.

1990: The Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, located at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, AZ, announces that four newly discovered asteroids, 4147-4150, will be named Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr.

1990:  James Brown was released from a South Carolina jail on work furlough after serving 15 months of a six-year sentence for aggravated assault.

1992: The Eagles' Don Henley leads 6,000 fans through Walden Woods in Massachusetts as part of a benefit walk to save the literally significant woods popularized by Henry Thoreau's work.

1992: Actress Lisa Bonet files for divorce from singer Lenny Kravitz

1995: Two weeks after her death, George W. Bush, (then the governor of Texas), declared "Selena Day" in Texas. The Mexican American singer Selena was murdered aged 23 by the president of her fan club Yolanda Saldívar on 31st March 1995.

1997: While on tour in the UK, Fun Lovin' Criminals drummer Stephen Borovini received a police caution after he was arrested on suspicion of making obscene phone calls to women working in gyms in the Leeds area.

1999: Boxcar Willie Died of leukemia.

1999: Shania Twain became the only female artist in music history to sell at least 10 million units with back to back releases.

2000: Metallica filed a suit against Napster, Yale University, The University of Southern California and Indiana University for copyright infringement.

2000: Bo Diddley filed suit against Nike for using his name and image without permission. Nike is accused of continuing to use his image after a contract expired in 1991.

2001: Gladys Knight marries her fourth husband, longtime friend William McDowell.

2002: Ozzy Osbourne received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2005: Mariah Carey released ‘The Emancipation of Mimi’, the album entered the US chart at number one, going six times platinum in less than a year, and subsequently became the most successful album of 2005.

2008: With her latest single, "4 Minutes," Madonna beats Elvis as the artist with the most all-time Top Ten Hits on the Billboard charts (37).

2008: Lou Reed marries his second wife, conceptual artist Laurie Anderson.

2010: In San Antonio, TX, Bret Michaels, of Poison, had an emergency appendectomy. He had gone to the hospital while preparing for a show the previous night.

April 11

Birthdays

1918: Jimmy Lewis (R&B Singer)

1935: Richard Berry (Wrote “Louie, Louie”)

Events

1956: Elvis Presley's tour plane develops engine trouble while flying the singer from Amarillo, TX to Nashville, forcing an emergency landing in Arkansas. When he calls his mother Gladys to tell her, she begs him to never fly again, instilling a fear of flying in Elvis which will take him years to get over.

1956: James Brown debuts on the R&B charts with "Please, Please, Please."

1966: NBC-TV's musical variety show Hullabaloo airs its last episode after sixteen months on the air, featuring Lesley Gore, Peter and Gordon, Paul Anka, and the Cyrkle.

1966: Frank Sinatra recorded "Strangers In The Night".

1967: Flying back to England after participating in the Beach Boys' aborted Smile sessions, Paul McCartney comes up with the idea for the Beatles film and album Magical Mystery Tour.

1968: Janis Joplin makes her television debut when Big Brother and the Holding Company perform on ABC-TV's variety show Hollywood Palace.

1976: Relaxing in his hotel after a record-breaking Sydney show, Alice Cooper is placed under house arrest for alleged breach of contract after refusing to pay another promoter $59,000 for an Australian tour the year before. When it is discovered that the promoter's fallen short on his end of the deal as well, Cooper is released to fly back to the States.

1983: R.E.M.'s first album, "Murmur", was released.

1988: Cher wins Best Actress for the romantic comedy Moonstruck at tonight's Oscar Awards in New York.

1990: Elton John performs at the Indianapolis, IN funeral of Ryan White, the hemophiliac 18-year-old who'd contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion and been shunned for it. Michael Jackson also attends the service.

1991: Ringo Starr was a guest on Fox TV's "The Simpsons."

1997: Grand Funk Railroad reforms for their first tour in years to benefit the Bosnian-American Relief Fund, which helps victims of the recent genocide in Bosnia.

2002: Aretha Franklin and seven other Motown stars are honored with street names in Detroit's new low-income housing project.

2002: Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson got engaged.

2006: Paul Anka guest-stars as himself in tonight's "The Real Paul Anka" episode of WB-TV's Gilmore Girls.

2006: June Pointer (The Pointer Sisters) died on this day.  She had a troubled history of drug and alcohol abuse, and suffered a stroke on February 27, 2006. While in the hospital, June was also diagnosed with cancer which had metastasized in her breast, colon, liver and bone.

April 10

Birthdays

1911: Martin Denny (Orchestra Leader)

1921: Sheb Wooley (Singer)

1932: Nate Nelson (The Flamingos)

1936: Bobbie Smith (The Spinners)

1947: Karl Russell (The Hues Corporation)

1947: Bunny Wailer (The Wailers)

1950: Eddie Hazel (Guitarist for Funkadelic)

1956: Neville Staples (The Specials)

1965: Nigel Pulsford (Bush)

1966: Lisa Stansfield (Singer)

1971: Oliver "Ollie" Riedel (Bassist for Rammstein)

1978: Tom Thacker (Guitar & Vocals for Sum 41)

1979: Shemekia Copeland (Blues Singer)

1984: Mandy Moore (Singer)

1987: Joss Stone (Singer)

Events

1953: Eddie Fisher is discharged from the US Army, having sold seven million records during his stint in the service.

1956: Leo Fender patents the successor to his popular "Telecaster" model of electric guitar, this time called the "Stratocaster."

1956: While performing at the Municipal Auditorium in Birmingham, AL, Nat King Cole is assaulted by five segregationists and tackled on stage, although local police quickly arrest the perpetrators, who had originally planned to kidnap the singer. Cole bravely performs a second show later that night.

1957: Ricky Nelson, then all of sixteen, performs his recently-recorded version of Fats Domino's "I'm Walkin'" -- done to impress a date -- on his family's TV sitcom, ABC's The Adventures Of Ozzie And Harriet. The record sells half a million copies in the next week alone.

1958: Chuck Willis, who had suffered from stomach ulcers for many years, died during surgery in Chicago of peritonitis while at the peak of his career.

1958: Bobby Darin recorded "Splish Splash" & "Queen Of The Hop"

1961: Del Shannon is the guest on ABC-TV's American Bandstand, singing his recent breakthrough hit, "Runaway."

1961: Bob Dylan played his first live gig in New York City at Gerde's Folk City, opening for John Lee Hooker.

1962: Stuart Sutcliffe, The original Bass player for The Beatles, died of a brain hemorrhage.

1964: The Beatles set a new chart record when they had 14 songs on the Billboard Hot 100. The songs ranged from ‘Can't Buy Me Love’ at No.1 to ‘Love Me Do’ at No. 81.

1965: A public school in Wrexham, North Wales, asks parents to make sure children attend in school uniforms after Rolling Stones fans at the school begin showing up in "corduroy trousers" like their heroes.

1967: The song "Somethin' Stupid" became the first father-daughter song to hit No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart. The song was performed by Nancy and Frank Sinatra.

1968: Bill Kreutzmann invites Mickey Hart to join the Grateful Dead as its second drummer.

1970: Paul McCartney makes the Beatles' secret breakup public by issuing a press release to announce that he has left the group, done in the form of a fake interview: "Q: Is your break with the Beatles temporary or permanent, due to personal differences or musical ones? PAUL: Personal differences, business differences, musical differences, but most of all because I have a better time with my family. Temporary or permanent? I don't really know." John Lennon is furious, especially since the breakup, already agreed upon by the group, was announced just one week prior to the British release of McCartney's first solo album. When a reporter tracks down Lennon for his thoughts, he replies, "Paul hasn't left. I sacked him."

1970: Keith Emerson of the Nice, Greg Lake of King Crimson, and Carl Palmer of Atomic Rooster join forces to form Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

1970: Peter Green quit Fleetwood Mac while on tour in Germany, to avoid breach of contract he agreed to finish the current tour.

1970: At one of the band's last concerts, in Boston, Doors frontman Jim Morrison asks the audience if they'd like to see something of his "that rhymes with 'sock,'" and then, more bluntly, screaming "Would you like to see my genitals?" The power in the stadium is switched off, and keyboardist Ray Manzarek pulls the singer, already facing similar charges from a Miami gig, off the stage.

1972: Isaac Hayes won an Oscar for the Best Music, Original Song award for the song "Shaft".

1973: The Beach Boys appeared at the Omni Coliseum in Atlanta, Georgia. The Beach Boys were at a very low ebb in popularity in America and this show proved a financial disaster for the promoter, with less than 3,000 tickets sold for the 16,000 capacity venue. Opening act was Mothers Finest and middle of the bill was Bruce Springsteen who played a 60-minute set.

1976: Peter Frampton's LP Frampton Comes Alive! hits #1.  It stayed on the charts for 97 weeks.

1976: Stevie Wonder is featured in an ad in today's edition of Down Beat Magazine, edorsing the Mu-Tron III effects pedal, which uses synthesizer envelopes to create a wah effect for guitar. Wonder had used the pedal on his 1973 smash "Higher Ground."

1978: Aretha Franklin marries her second husband, actor Glynn Turman, in New York City. The Four Tops sing Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely" at the ceremony.

1981: Eddie Van Halen married actress Valerie Bertinelli, co-star of the 1980's television hit, One Day at a Time. The two had met eight months earlier when Bertinelli's brother took her to a Van Halen concert in Shreveport, Louisiana.

1991:  Donnie Wahlberg (New Kids on the Block) agreed to tape public service announcements warning against doing drugs, driving drunk, and starting fires. The deal was an exchange for having arson charges against him reduced by a Louisville, KY, judge.

1999: The all-star tribute concert Here There and Everywhere: A Concert For Linda is held at London's Royal Albert Hall, where Paul McCartney, George Michael, Chrissie Hynde, Elvis Costello and Sinead O'Connor raise money for animal charities while remembering Paul's wife Linda, who has recently succumbed to breast cancer.

2002: South Carolina Governor James Hodges makes it official by declaring James Brown the state's "Godfather Of Soul."

2003: Little Eva continued performing until she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in October 2001. She died on this day in Kinston, North Carolina, aged 59, and is buried in a small cemetery in Belhaven, North Carolina.

2003: Three gunmen shot at a convoy of cars, one of which carried Snoop Dogg.

2006: A member of Eminem's rap collective D12 was killed in a nightclub shooting in Detroit after an argument broke out at the CCC nightclub. Proof, (real name Deshaun Holton), was shot at a club on Eight Mile Road, made famous in Eminem's autobiographical film 8 Mile. Holton was a longtime friend of Eminem and was the rappers best man at his wedding in January of this year.

2007: Johnny Cash's last residence, a 14,000-square-foot house in Hendersonville, TN, burns to the ground. It had been purchased after Cash's death by Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, and planned for renovation.