July 29

Births

1946: Neal Doughty (Keyboards for REO Speedwagon)

1953: Geddy Lee (Bass & Vocals for Rush)

1953: Patti Sciafa (Background Singer for Rolling Stones & Bruce Springsteen)

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)

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’.

1963: Peter, Paul and Mary release the single "Blowin' In The Wind".

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 of 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: Primal Scream singer Bobby Gillespie married his girlfriend Katy England at a service in Staffordshire, England.

2006: Pamela Anderson married for the second time to US rapper 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.