August 6

Births

1921: Buddy Collette (Tenor Sax)

1928: Andy Warhol (Artist)

1929: Mike Elliot (Sax for The Foundations)

1948: Allan Holdsworth (Guitar for Soft Machine)

1952: Vinnie Vincent (Guitar for Kiss & Vinnie Vincent’s Invation)

1969: Elliot Smith (Singer / Songwriter)

1972: Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice) (Vocals for The Spice Girls)

Events

1956: The Alan Freed movie Rock! Rock! Rock! goes into production, featuring Tuesday Weld (her singing vocals dubbed by Connie Francis), Chuck Berry, Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers, The Moonglows, The Flamingos, and LaVern Baker.

1960: Looking for a drummer for a series of dates in Hamburg, Germany, The Beatles visit Liverpool's Casbah club to invite Pete Best, then of the Black Jacks, to join the group.

1960: On ABC-TV's American Bandstand, Chubby Checker demonstrates The Twist for the first time, kicking off a dance craze craze that would last the better part of two years.

1964: Rod Stewart makes his TV debut on BBC-TV's The Beat Room, singing as a member of his group, The Hoochie Coochie Men.

1966: As the Fleet Street press in London reports on the "bigger than Jesus" controversy in America, Beatles manager Brian Epstein cuts his vacation short and flies to New York City for a televised press conference where he defends John Lennon's remarks, stating "The quote which John Lennon made to a London columnist has been quoted and misrepresented entirely out of context of the article, which was in fact highly complimentary to Lennon as a person... Lennon didn't mean to boast about the Beatles' fame. He meant to point out that the Beatles' effect appeared to be a more immediate one upon, certainly, the younger generation. John is deeply concerned and regrets that people with certain religious beliefs should have been offended."

1970: Steppenwolf, Janis Joplin, Paul Simon, Poco and Johnny Winter all appeared at the Concert For Peace at New York's Shea Stadium. The concert date coincided with the 25th anniversary of dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

1973: A log from a passing lumber truck crushes Stevie Wonder's car as it speeds near Winston-Salem NC, leaving him in a coma for four days and causing him to permanently lose his sense of smell. Miraculously, he fully recovers and is back in the studio within weeks.

1974: Abba scored their first US top 10 hit when ‘Waterloo’ went to No.6. The Swedish group were also on their first American tour.

1981: Stevie Nicks released her first solo album Bella Donna which contained four top 40 US hits. ‘Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around’, (with Tom Petty), ‘Leather and Lace’, (with Don Henley), ‘Edge of Seventeen’ and ‘After the Glitter Fades.’

1982: Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ starring Bob Geldof opened in movie theatres in New York. The film was conceived alongside the double album by Pink Floyd’s, Roger Waters.

1983: Avant-garde musician and former backing singer with David Bowie Klaus Nomi died at the age of 39 of Aids in New York City aged 38. Nomi was one of the first celebrities to contract AIDS.

1987: The Beastie Boys sued the city of Jacksonville, FL for including the phrase "mature audience" on their concert tickets and ads.

1988: 'Appetite For Destruction' Guns N' Roses debut album went to No.1 in the US, after spending 57 weeks on the chart and selling over 5 million copies. Singles from the album, ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine,’ ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ and ‘Paradise City’ were all US top 10 hits. Worldwide sales now stand in excess of 28 million and the album is the best-selling debut album of all-time in the US, beating Boston's debut album Boston, which has gone 17x platinum.

1989: Adam Clayton of U2 was arrested in The Blue Light Inn car park in Dublin for marijuana possession and intent to supply the drug to another person. His conviction was waived in exchange for paying $50,000 to the Dublin Woman's Aid Centre.

1994: Lisa Loeb started a three week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Stay (I Missed You).  Actor and friend Ethan Hawke had asked her to provide a song for the upcoming movie Reality Bites and 'Stay' was featured in the film.  She did not have a record label distributor at the time.

1996: Vince Neil attempted to play a show at an Indiana club. The show, starting more than four hours late, ended after only three songs. Neil claimed that he wasn't feeling well, and that the audience of "rednecks" didn't appreciate his talent.

1996: Eddie Vedder videotaped the Ramones placing their hands in cement on the Hollywood Rock Walk prior to a Ramones show at The Palace. The Ramones claimed that it was their last show ever.

1999: Dick Latvala died aged 56 after being in a coma caused by a heart attack. Latvala worked with The Grateful Dead since the early 80’s looking after their archives of live performances which became a series of 'Dick’s Picks' albums.

2001: Whitney Houston became one of the highest-paid musicians in the world after signing a new deal with Arista records, said to be worth more than $100m.

2004: Rick James died from pulmonary failure and cardiac failure with his various health conditions of diabetes, stroke, a pacemaker, and a heart attack at age 56.

2007: Marilyn Manson was being sued by a former band member who said he was owed $20m in shared profits. Stephen Bier, who played keyboards under the stage name Madonna Wayne Gacy, claimed he was not paid properly over a period of almost two decades. In legal papers filed in Los Angeles, Bier claimed Manson falsely told him the band was not making much money and used band money to buy a $2m home and collect Nazi memorabilia, including coat hangers used by Adolf Hitler.

2009: Steven Tyler was airlifted to hospital after falling off stage during a gig at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota. The 61-year-old Aerosmith singer fell from a catwalk onto a couple of fans, he suffered neck and shoulder injuries. About 30 minutes after the accident, guitarist Joe Perry came out to tell the crowd that the remainder of the show had been cancelled.