August 8

Births

1907: Benny Carter (Jazz musician)

1920: Jimmy Witherspoon (Blues Singer)

1921: Webb Pierce (Country Singer)

1932: Mel Tillis (Country Singer)

1933: Joe Tex (Soul Singer)

1939: Phil Balsley (Singer in The Statler Brothers)

1944: Michael Johnson (Pop Singer)

1949: Airrion Love (Singer in The Stylistics)

1950: Willie Hall (Funk Drummer)

1955: Ali Score (Drummer for A Flock Of Seagulls)

1958: Christopher Foreman (Guitar for Madness)

1959: Rikki Rockett (Richard Allan Ream) (Drums for Poison)

1961: The Edge (Dave Evans) (Guitar for U2)

1973: Scott Stapp (Singer for Creed)

1976: Joshua “JC” Chasez (Vocals for N’SYNC)

1976: Drew Lachey (Singer in 98 Degrees)

Events

1923: A fourteen-year-old clarinet player named Benny Goodman lands his first professional gig, playing for a cruise ship operating on Lake Michigan near Chicago.

1958: Bing Crosby and wife Kathryn announce the birth of their first child (and Bing's fifth overall), Harry Lillis Crosby III.(Harry is Bing's real first name.)

1960: Decca Records in England refuses to release Ray Peterson's latest single, "Tell Laura I Love Her," going so far as to throw away 25,000 pressings of the teen-tragedy song, which they felt was "too tasteless and vulgar for the English sensibility." A cover by Ricky Valance proves them wrong by going straight to Number One. (The grisly song, in which a stock-car driver mutters the title words before he dies, ironically only reaches #7 in America.)

1969: Photographer Iain MacMillan shoots the cover for what would be the Beatles' last recorded album, Abbey Road, just outside the studios of the same name where the band recorded most of its classic songs. The photo, which merely shows the band crossing the street while walking away from the studio, has become iconic in its own right, and provides "Paul Is Dead" enthusiasts with several erroneous "clues" to his "death," including the fact that Paul is barefoot. (Supposedly this represents a corpse, but McCartney has stated that it was simply a hot day.) The shoot, which lasts ten minutes, produces six shots, from which Paul picks the cover.

1970: At Philadelphia's Mount Lawn Cemetary, Janis Joplin purchases a headstone for her idol, Bessie Smith, the famous African-American blues singer who died from injuries suffered in a 1937 car crash -- after being refused at a whites-only hospital. (Bessie's widower refused to purchase a stone for her.)

1975: Hank Williams, Jr. falls 500 feet down Ajax Mountain near Missoula, MT, exposing part of his brain and keeping him in and out of hospitals for the next two years. The resultant facial scars would inspire his trademark "hat, beard, and shades" look.

1975: Saxophonist Cannonball Adderley died of a stroke at age 46.

1980: The Greater London Council banned The Plasmatics from blowing a car up on stage during their UK live debut at London's Hammersmith Odeon.

1982: Mickey Thomas (Singer for Jefferson Starship) married Sara Kendrick.

1983: Harold Melvin and three members of the Blue Notes are arrested for cocaine, marijuana, and meth possession at Caesars Boardwalk Regency Hotel Casino in Atlantic City.

1986: David Crosby (The Byrds, Crosby Stills & Nash) is released from prison after serving only eight months of his original five-year sentence for cocaine and firearms possession.

1992: A riot broke out during a Guns N' Roses and Metallica gig at Montreal stadium when Metallica's show was cut short after singer James Hetfield was injured by pyrotechnics. Guns N' Roses took the stage but frontman Axl Rose claimed that his throat hurt, causing the band to leave the stage early. The cancellation led to a riot by the audience who overturned cars, smashed windows, looted local stores and set fires.

1996: Kiss appeared at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio on their 192 date Alive World Tour. During this show a fan threw his fake leg on stage, which all the members signed and handed back to him.

2000: Twenty-eight US states' attorney generals file a class-action suit alleging the major record labels of forcing "discount" CD stores to raise prices.

2000: In Portugal, Oasis walked off stage for the second time in two weeks when drummer Alan White was hit by a rock.

2005: Two jurors in the Michael Jackson molestation case tell NBC-TV's Today that they have come to regret their ruling of "not guilty."

2006: Travis Barker (Drummer for Blink-182) filed for a divorce from ex-beauty queen Shanna Moakler.