July 30

Births

1936: Buddy Guy (Blues Guitarist & Singer)

1941: Paul Anka (Pop Singer)

1945: David Sanborn (Jazz Sax Player)

1946: Jeffrey Hammond (Bass for Jethro Tull)

1957: Rat Scabies (Chris Miller) (Drums for The Damned)

1958: Kate Bush (Singer / Songwriter)

1958: Neal McCoy (Country Artist)

1971: Brad Hargraves (Drums for Third Eye Blind)

1977: Ian Watkins (Singer for Lostprophets)

Events

1942: Frank Sinatra ends his association with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra, recording the last two of over 90 songs before moving on to great acclaim as a solo star at Columbia.

1954: Elvis Presley makes his first official concert appearance as a solo act, opening for Slim Whitman at Memphis' Overton Park Shell outdoor auditorium, billed third as "Ellis Presley" and performing "That's All Right, Mama," "Blue Moon Of Kentucky," and "I'll Never Let You Go (Little Darlin')." In the middle of the first song, a badly stage-frightened Elvis unconsciously begins to duplicate a move he usually made in the studio, shaking his leg in time with the music. The crowd of (mostly) girls goes absolutely wild, confusing Elvis and his band.

1968: The Beatles' Apple Boutique, a psychedelic clothing store located at 94 Baker Street in London, closes for business after seven months of bad business practices and rampant theft. With the group and its intimates having had the pick of the remaining inventory the night before, Apple Boutique employees are instructed to simply let people in off the street to take whatever merchandise they like. The store was closed that evening for good.

1978: Glen Goine, singer and guitarist with Parliament / Funkadelic died from Hodgkin's Lymphoma aged 24. Had the 1978 US No.16 album 'One Nation Under A Groove'.

1986: Boy George was fined $500 by a London court for possession of heroin.

1986: Variety reports that RCA has fired John Denver after learning of his new single, entitled "What Are We Making Weapons For?" General Electric, which had just bought out RCA, was one of the country's largest defense contractors.

1991: A police officer was forced to tear up a traffic ticket given to the limousine that Axl Rose was travelling in after it made an illegal turn. Rose threatened to pull that nights Guns N' Roses gig if the ticket was issued.

1993: Founder member and original bassist for The Wonder Stuff, Rob Jones died in New York aged 29.

2003: In order to prove that the city is still safe to visit after a recent SARS outbreak, Toronto, Canada puts on the largest concert in the country's history, a massive open-air extravagaza featuring The Rolling Stones, The Guess Who, Rush, The Isley Brothers, The Flaming Lips and Justin Timberlake, among others. Total attendance is somewhere around 450,000.

2003: Sam Phillips, the founder of Sun Records and studio, died of respiratory failure at St. Francis Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. In the 1940s, Phillips worked as a DJ for Muscle Shoals, Alabama radio station WLAY. Phillips recorded what some consider to be the first rock and roll record, ‘Rocket 88’ by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats in 1951. He discovered Elvis Presley, worked with Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Ike Turner, B.B. King and Jerry Lee Lewis.

2004: While walking around London, the Isley Brothers' Ronald Isley suffers a minor stroke and is admitted to a local hospital. He recovers in a matter of just a few weeks.

2006: Shakira feat Wyclef Jean started a four week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart with ‘Hips Don't Lie.’ A remake of Wyclef Jean's 2004 song 'Dance Like This', the song went on to top the charts in over 50 countries. The song is the biggest selling single of the 21st century by a female artist worldwide. 

July 29

Births

1946: Neal Doughty (Keyboards for REO Speedwagon)

1953: Geddy Lee (Bass & Vocals for Rush)

1953: Patti Scialfa (Background Singer for Bruce Springsteen (Also his wife)

1959: John Sykes (Guitar for Thin Lizzy, Audioslave & Whitesnake)

1962: Martin McCarrick (Guitar for Therapy?)

1966: Martina McBride (Country Singer)

1973: Wanya Morris (Vocals for Boyz II Men)

1973: James Otto (Country Artist)

1977: Danger Mouse (Brian Joseph Burton ) (Producer)

Events

1959: The Isley Brothers recorded the hit single "Shout".

1961: Dick Clark presents his very first Caravan of Stars revue at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, NJ, featuring The Jive Five, the Shirelles, and Clarence "Frogman" Henry.

1963: Capitol Records sends disc jockeys around the US a list of hot rod terms to assist DJs when talking about the latest music trend to help promote The Beach Boys latest release ‘Little Deuce Coupe’.

1965: The Beatles' second movie, Help!, premieres in London at the Pavilion Theatre, with none other than the Queen attending. (Though reviews are mixed, the movie is a financial success.) Later, manager Brian Epstein and the group attend a post-premiere reception at the Dorchester Hotel.

1966: While out riding his Triumph 500 motorbike near Woodstock, NY, Bob Dylan's brakes lock up, causing him to fly off the bike, seriously injuring his neck vertebrae. Dylan was absent from the public spotlight for a full nine months, with rumors circulating that he'd actually broken his neck. Decades later, there's still some doubt as to how exaggerated his condition was; some claim he privately sought to use the injury as an excuse to disappear from the spotlight (or that there was no accident at all). The hiatus gives him a chance to record what would become known as the "Basement Tapes" in a big pink house in Woodstock with a band called The Hawks, who would later record their first album, Music From Big Pink.

1966: Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker made their live debut as Cream at The Twisted Wheel, Manchester, England.

1966: The Grateful Dead played their first ever show outside the US when they appeared in Vancouver.

1966: The US teen magazine Datebook reprints a John Lennon quote from an interview, conducted by Maureen Cleave, which had been published in the London Evening Standard newspaper: "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."  The resulting uproar causes the Beatles' records to be burned in America, especially the South, and death threats to be issued against the band on their upcoming US tour -- despite a hastily assembled press conference in Chicago, at which John explains, "If I had said television is more popular than Jesus, I might have got away with it, but I just happened to be talking to a friend and I used the words "Beatles" as a remote thing, not as what I think - as Beatles, as those other Beatles like other people see us... I'm not saying that we're better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is. I just said what I said and it was wrong. Or it was taken wrong. And now it's all this... I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. I apologize if that will make you happy. I still don't know quite what I've done. I've tried to tell you what I did do but if you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then OK, I'm sorry."

1967: The Doors started a three week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Light My Fire'. The group's first US No.1.

1968: Refusing to play in front of the country's segregated audiences, Gram Parsons leaves the Byrds on the eve of a South African tour.

1968: The Beatles recorded the single "Hey Jude".

1970: The Rolling Stones' contract with Decca expires, and the group takes the opportunity to split with notorious manager Allen Klein. Delivering one more song to the label to fulfill its obligation, the famously unreleasable "C********* Blues," they also begin the process of forming their own label, Rolling Stones Records (which will feature the debut of the band's new "lips" logo).

1973: While performing on stage at Madison Square Garden, Led Zeppelin has $180,000 of their gate receipts from the previous night's show stolen from their safe at the Drake Hotel. This incident, one of the largest such crimes in the history of NYC, will be immortalized in the band's 1976 concert documentary The Song Remains The Same. The crooks are never found.

1974: Mamas And The Papas singer Cass Elliot died in her sleep from a heart attack after playing a sold out show in London, England. She was staying at Harry Nilson's London flat when she died. Her only solo hit was 'Dream a Little Dream of Me,' which also featured the rest of The Mamas and The Papas.

1978: Prince appeared on the US charts for the first time with 'Soft and Wet'.

1978: The film soundtrack to Grease featuring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John went to No.1 on the US album chart.

1982: Andy Taylor of Duran Duran weds Tracie Wilson.

1986: Seventies soft-rocker Paul Davis ("I Go Crazy") is shot during an attempted robbery at a Nashville hotel. He eventually recovers.

1987: Michigan governor James Blanchard declares today "Four Tops Day" in honor of the Motown legends.

1990: Elton John checks into a hospital in Chicago, IL, for bulimia and substance abuse.

1998: Miramax studios announces their purchase of the rights to the Beatles' 1964 film A Hard Day's Night, intending to remaster it in time for the film's 35th anniversary.

2005: An anonymous bidder pays one million dollars for the original handwritten lyrics to the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" at the Hippodrome nightclub in London.

2006: Pamela Anderson gets married for the second time. This time to Kid Rock on a yacht off the French resort of St Tropez. The 39-year-old former Baywatch star divorced from rock star Tommy Lee in 1998, had recently got back together with Kid Rock, after a brief engagement ended in 2003. Anderson and Rock split after four months of marriage.

2007: Heart problems forced Kiss singer and guitarist Paul Stanley to abandon a show in California. Paramedics stopped and restarted his heart to give it a regular rhythm after his heart spontaneously jumped to 190 plus beats per minute.

July 28

Births

1901: Rudy Vallee (Singer & Band Leader)

1915: Frankie Yankovic (Polka Artist)

1943: Mike Bloomfield (Guitar for Paul Butterfield Blues Band)

1943: Rick Wright (Keyboards & Piano for Pink Floyd)

1946: Jonathan Edwards (Folk Singer)

1948: Gerald Casale (Bass & keyboards for Devo)

1954: Steve Morse (Guitar for Dixie Dregs & Deep Purple)

1965: Nick Banks (Drums for Pulp)

1976: Jacoby Dakota Shaddix (Lead Singer for Papa Roach)

1980: Stephen Christian (Lead vocals for Anberlin)

1990: Soulja Boy (DeAndre Cortez Way) (Rapper)

Events

1750: Johann Sebastian Bach died after an unsuccessful eye operation. He was 65 years old.

1933: The first singing telegram is sent -- to a popular singer, crooner Rudy Vallee, on the occasion of his 32nd birthday.

1939: Judy Garland recorded "Over The Rainbow".

1956: Gene Vincent made his first appearance on national TV in the US on The Perry Como Show. Vincent had released ‘Woman Love’ the previous month, but it was the B-side, ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula,’ that eventually made the top 10. The song had been purchased from a fellow hospital patient when Vincent was recovering from leg injuries. A demo of the song made its way to Capitol Records as part of an Elvis sound-alike contest and a re-recorded version gave Vincent a hit.

1957: Jerry Lee Lewis makes his first national TV appearance, singing "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" on NBC's The Steve Allen Show.

1969: After a Moscow magazine explains how to turn an acoustic guitar into an electric one using only parts from a telephone, police report that thousands of the city's phone booths have been stripped.

1970: The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger makes his acting debut in Ned Kelly, a film about the legendary Australian outlaw, which makes his debut in Kelly's own hometown of Glenrowan.

1973: One of the last of the great outdoor rock festivals was held at Watkins Glen racetrack in New York, with over 600,000 attending a "Summer Jam" featuring the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers, and The Band. This was the largest human gathering ever assembled at the time.

1973: Grand Funk Railroad released the single "We're An American Band".

1979: 'I Don't Like Mondays' gave The Boomtown Rats their second UK No.1 single. Bob Geldof wrote the song after reading a report on the shooting spree of 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer, who fired at children playing in a school playground across the street from her home in San Diego, California. She killed two adults and injured eight children and one police officer. Spencer showed no remorse for her crime, and her full explanation for her actions was "I don't like Mondays, this livens up the day."

1985: Portland, OR, declares today "Kingsmen Day" in honor of their garage-rock native sons, who scored a legendary hit with their version of "Louie Louie."

1987: The Beatles' company, Apple, sues shoemaker Nike, Capitol Records, EMI, and Wieden+Kennedy advertising agency for $15 million for unauthorized use of the Beatles' song "Revolution" in one of their "Nike Air" TV ads. Nike claimed it had paid their US label, Capitol, $250,000 for the rights, and also that Yoko Ono had given her blessing. The suit was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

1991: Almost 100 arrests were made after an estimated 2,000 Youths rioted after a MC Hammer concert in Penticon, Canada.

1992: Patti Labelle walks offstage during her concert in Warwick, RI, having complained to the audience about the catering backstage.

1992: Mary J. Blige's first album "What's the 411?" was released.

1992: Rapper Ice T announced that Warner Brothers Records would pull the controversial song 'Cop Killer' from all future copies of his "Body Count" album. The song had been the target of protests by law enforcement groups who said it encouraged the killing of police. Ice T said he would give away recordings of 'Cop Killer' at his concerts. In an ironic twist, he would later join the cast of the NBC police drama, Law and Order.

1993: The 10,000 Maniacs played their last show with lead singer Natalie Merchant. Merchant left the group to pursue a solo career.

1995: After decades of legal wrangling, James Al Hendrix, surviving father of Jimi, is once again granted legal use of his son's name and likeness for merchandising.

1998: It was announced that Toad The Wet Sprocket was disbanding.

2004: American soul singer George Williams from The Tymes died of cancer. Had the 1963 US million seller ‘So Much in Love’ and the 1975 UK No.1 single 'Ms Grace'.

2004: Justin Timberlake obtained a restraining order against a photographer who allegedly stalked him. A judge in Santa Monica, California, granted the order against photographer Artemus Earl Lister.

2006: Prince's second wife Manuela Testolini Nelson filed for divorce. His first marriage, to dancer Mayte Garcia, took place in 1996 but only lasted two years.

2008: Amy Winehouse was rushed to hospital after she started to have fits at her home in Camden North London. A spokesman said it appeared the singer had suffered a reaction to medication she was taking to help her off hard drugs.

2011: Soulja Boy turned 21 on and the rapper bought himself a $55 million private jet for the occasion.

2011: At a concert in Los Angeles,  63 year old Singer Meatloaf (Marvin Lee Aday)  suffered an asthma attack and, after being assisted by medical personnel, managed to go on with the show 10 minutes later.