November 20

Births

1925: June Christy (Jazz Singer)

1946: Duane Allman (Guitar for The Allman Brothers & Derek and the Dominoes)

1947: Joe Walsh (Guitar & Vocals for The Eagles & Solo)

1965: Mike D (Mike Diamond) (Rapper in The Beastie Boys)

1965: Sen Dog (Senen Reyes) (Rapper in Cypress Hill)

1975: Davey Havok (Lead singer for AFI)

1975: Dierks Bentley (Country Artist)

1977: Josh Turner (Country Artist)

1986: Jared Followill (Bass for Kings Of Leon)

Events

1955: At New York City's Warwick Hotel, Sun Records owner and producer Sam Phillips sells Elvis Presley's contract to RCA for an unheard-of $35,000, at that time the largest amount ever paid to sign a recording artist. Elvis receives $13,500 of the total; Phillips invests his share in a local hotel chain called the Holiday Inn.

1955: After agreeing to perform Tennessee Ernie Ford's hit "Sixteen Tons" on CBS-TV's Ed Sullivan Show, Bo Diddley instead plays the song he was actually there to promote, his own hit "Bo Diddley." A furious Sullivan blackballs Bo from ever appearing on the show again. The singer has claimed he was never paid for the performance.

1961: Billboard reports on the stunning popularity of the "Twist" craze: three separate films, starring Chubby Checker, Joey Dee and the Starlighters, and Dion, are scheduled for production, and New York television station WOR is airing hourly twist lessons of between one and five minutes, also featuring Checker.

1970: The Kinks' Ray Davies flies to London to re-record a section of the lead vocals for the group's latest single, "Apeman." Radio stations are objecting to the line "The air pollution is foggin' up my eyes," claiming "foggin'" sounds too much like another f-word.

1973: 19-year-old Who fan Scot Halpin has his dream come true when the group invites him onstage to play the last three songs of their set at San Francisco's Cow Palace. Drummer Keith Moon, who was said to be suffering from "jet lag," was in a near-coma after ingesting seven horse tranquilizers and passing out on his kit. Halpin performs "Smokestack Lightning," "Spoonful," and "Naked Eye" with the group, then takes a bow with them. Later. Rolling Stone awards Halpin their "Pick-Up Player Of The Year Award."

1975: Bay City Rollers lead singer Les McKeown is found not guilty of vehicular homicide after striking and killing 76-year-old Euphemia Clunie with his car the previous May, after it was ruled that Clunie was walking very erratically while crossing the street. The singer is, however, charged with reckless driving, fined $250, and has his license suspended for a year.

1975: George Harrison and Paul Simon duet on "Homeward Bound" and "Here Comes The Sun" in pre-recorded versions aired on tonight's episode of NBC-TV's Saturday Night Live. Harrison also does an opening sketch where he asks for his quarter of the famous $3,000 offered by show producer Lorne Michaels, earlier in the year, for the Beatles to reunite.

1984: Michael Jackson is awarded a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame directly in from of Mann's famous Chinese Theatre, creating the largest-ever crowd for such an unveiling.

1991: Randy Jackson of the Jacksons is sentenced to a month in a Los Angeles jail for violating his probation for spousal abuse.

1993: August, GA mayor Charles DeVaney re-dedicates the city's Ninth Street as "James Brown Boulevard" in honor of its native son.

1994: Former Byrds and CSNY member David Crosby receives a liver transplant.

2001: Charlie Daniels undergoes surgery in Nashville for prostate cancer.

2002: Stevie Wonder threatens to sue his mother, Lula Hardaway, for a passage in her new autobiography where she claims Stevie lost his virginity to a prostitute. The story was deleted from future copies.

2003: Famed "Wall of Sound" producer Phil Spector is formally charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of b-movie actress Lana Clarkson at his Los Angeles home. Spector enters a plea of "not guilty."

2003: After returning to his Neverland home after a raid on it a few days before, and in response to an arrest warrant, Michael Jackson is charged with child molestation in Santa Barbara, CA. The singer is immediately released after posting three million dollars' bail.

November 19

Births

1905: Tommy Dorsey (Bandleader)

1939: Pete Moore (Bass singer in Smokey Robinson and the Miracles)

1943: Fred Lipsius (Sax for Blood, Sweat and Tears)

1957: Ofra Haza (Isreali Singer)

1960: Matt Sorum (Drummer for Guns “n” Roses, The Cult & Velvet Revolver)

1961: Justin Chancellor (Bass for Tool)

1969: Travis McNabb (Drummer for Better Than Ezra)

1971: Tony Rich (R&B Singer)

1973: Billy Currington (Country Artist)

1989: Tyga (Michael Stevenson) (Rapper)

Events

1954: While driving from Vegas to Los Angeles, Sammy Davis, Jr. crashes into another car on Route 66 San Bernadino, CA, and three days later, permanently loses use of his left eye. While in the hospital, friend Eddie Cantor tells Davis about the twin struggles of the Jewish and African-Americans, leading Davis to convert to Judaism. (The accident increased his popularity.)

1957: Chicago radio station WCFL is picketed by the local chapter of the Elvis Presley fan club when it bans Presley's records. Nevertheless, the station doesn't flinch.

1959: An unnamed RCA executive tells reporters that, when he returns from the Army, Elvis Presley's music will be very different than the rock and roll he performed previously. Manager Colonel Tom Parker rushes to issue an official denial to fans.

1960: While in Los Angeles during the filming of his seventh movie, Wild In The Country, Elvis Presley suffers a bit of road rage, pulling a gun on a group of passengers in another car who had supposedly insulted him.

1965: At the Glad Rags Ball in London, the Who's lead singer Roger Daltrey, storms off stage in the middle of a set plagued with PA problems. Rumors of a Who breakup spread quickly through London with most of them naming Boz Burrell (King Crimson and Bad Company) as Daltrey's possible replacement.

1968: Onstage with the Supremes at the Royal Command Variety Performance in London, Diana Ross interrupts the show with a plea for greater interracial understanding. She receives a two-minute ovation from the audience, which includes members of the royal family. Queen Elizabeth II herself stands after Ross' moving performance of West Side Story's "Somewhere."

1979: Chuck Berry was released from prison after serving a four-month sentence for tax evasion.

1983: Bassist Tom Evans from Badfinger committed suicide by hanging himself in his back garden from a willow tree. Family members said the singer, songwriter was never able to get over his former bandmate's Pete Ham's suicide.

1992: Linda Ronstadt is the guest star on tonight's "Mr. Plow" episode of Fox-TV's The Simpsons.

1993: Nirvana recorded an MTV unplugged concert in New York.

1994: Crosby Stills & Nash member David Crosby had a successful liver transplant operation at Dumont-UCLA in Los Angeles. Crosby's liver was deteriorated from extensive alcohol and drug abuse, as well as hepatitis-C.

1995: The first installment of The Beatles Anthology documentary airs on ABC.

1995: Frank Sinatra's all-star 80th birthday tribute is held in the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, featuring Bob Dylan performing "Restless Farewell" (at the request of Sinatra; Dylan had wanted to perform Frank's own "That's Life") and Paula Abdul singing "Luck Be A Lady." Afterwards, Dylan and fellow performer Bruce Springsteen, along with Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, are invited back to the crooner's home.

1997: A "serious but stable" Johnny Cash is admitted to Nashville's Baptist Hospital after coming down with double pneumonia.

2002: While greeting fans from a fifth-floor hotel balcony in Berlin, Michael Jackson shocks the world by dangling his newborn son Prince Michael II over the side of the railing.

2003: An arrest warrant is issued on Los Angeles for Michael Jackson, due to recent charges of child molestation. The singer, phoning from Vegas where he is filming a video, convinces authorities to wait for his return to stand trial.

2004: Rapper Young Buck was arrested over a stabbing at the Vibe hip-hop awards. Young Buck (David Darnell Brown) was arrested on suspicion of stabbing a man who allegedly punched rapper Dr. Dre in the face. He was released on $500,000 bail after surrendering to police in Los Angeles.

2005: Former glam rock star Gary Glitter was arrested in Vietnam after being detained at Ho Chi Minh airport as he tried to board a plane to Bangkok. Police said Glitter was being held under suspicion of committing lewd acts with two girls under the age of 18.

2007: Queen guitarist Brian May is named Chancellor of Liverpool's John Moores University.

2007: At Caroline Kennedy's 50th birthday party, guest performer Neil Diamond reveals that his 1970 hit "Sweet Caroline" was actually written about her.

November 17

Births

1938: Gordon Lightfoot (Singer / Songwriter)

1942: Bob Gaudio (Keyboards for The Four Seasons)

1944: Gene Clark (Guitar & Vocals for The Byrds)

1946: Martin Barre (Guitar for Jethro Tull)

1957: Jim Babjak (Guitar for The Smithereens)

1960: RuPaul (Singer)

1966: Jeff Buckley (Singer / Songwriter)

1967: Ronald DeVoe (Singer in New Edition & Bell-Biv-DeVoe)

1967: Ben Wilson (Keyboards for Blues Traveler)

1970: Paul Allender (Lead Guitar for Cradle Of Filth)

1980: Isaac Hanson (Singer / Songwriter in Hanson)

1987: Kat DeLuna (R&B Singer)

1988: Reid Perry (Bass for The Band Perry)

Events

1963: Headmaster John Weightman of Surrey Grammar School in Guildford, England, bans the popular Beatle "moptop" haircuts, explaining that "this ridiculous style brings out the worst in boys physically. It makes them look like morons."

1963: Singer Tommy Sands joins his wife, Nancy Sinatra, to perform "Old Straw Hat" and "Hey Good Lookin'" on CBS-TV's Ed Sullivan Show.

1963: Backstage at the British ITV music program Thank Your Lucky Stars, the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger and Keith Richards present Gene Pitney with one of their first songs, "My Only Girl." Retitled "That Girl Belongs To Yesterday," it would be a hit for Pitney on both sides of the ocean, the first Jagger/Richards composition to make the US charts, and the first UK hit for the pair. Later, the Stones themselves record the song, but their version is never released.

1967: Davy Jones of the Monkees opens a boutique called Zilch I, named after a Monkees song, in New York's Greenwich Village.

1976: Olivia-Newton John's first TV special, A Very Special Olivia Newton-John, is broadcast on ABC.

1978: During Bob Dylan's show at the San Diego Sports Arena, an audience member throws a silver Christian cross onstage, which the singer picks up and pockets. Perhaps coincidentally, Dylan enters his "Christian period" the next year.

1979: The Guinness Book of World Records verifies ABBA as the biggest-selling recording group in history.

1979: Jethro Tull bass player John Glascock died at the age of 28 as a result of a congenital heart defect.

1980: The annual "Royal Command Performance" in London features Aretha Franklin and Sammy Davis Jr. singing for England's Queen Elizabeth II.

1990: While speeding without a helmet, David Crosby crashes his Harley-Davidson motorcycle in Los Angeles, breaking his shoulder, left leg, and ankle.

1992: Former members of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers Jimmy Merchant and Herman Santiago, are awarded four million dollars in back royalties from a music publisher for their 1956 hit "Why Do Fools Fall In Love?"

1999: Mariah Carey was forced to abandon a performance on Rome's historic Spanish Steps after crowds of tourists swamped her. She took shelter in a local shop before being given a police escort to safety.

2000: Cher makes her first appearance on NBC-TV's sitcom Will and Grace, in the episode "Gypsies, Tramps and Weed."

2000: ABC-TV airs the documentary The Beatles: Revolution.

2003: After collapsing on stage during a concert in London, Meat Loaf is rushed to a nearby hospital with what a publicist terms "exhaustion due to a prolonged viral infection" but what is actually an irregular heartbeat requiring emergency surgery.

2003: 21 year-old Britney Spears became the youngest singer to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The only other performer to get a Hollywood star at her age was Little House on the Prairie actress Melissa Gilbert.