December 5

Births

1901: Walt Disney

1931: Ike Turner (R&B Singer & Guitarist)

1932: Little Richard (Richard Penniman) (Pianist & Singer)

1938: JJ Cale (Singer / Songwriter)

1941: Art Garfunkel (Singer / Songwriter in Simon & Garfunkel & Solo)

1946: Gram Parsons (Guitar & Vocals for Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers & Solo)

1947: Peter Noone (Singer & Guitar for Herman's Hermits)

1947: Jim Messina (Singer / Songwriter for Poco, Buffalo Springfield, Loggins & Messina & Solo)

1947: Donnie McDougall (Guitar for The Guess Who)

1952: Bobby Barth (Guitar for Axe & Blackfoot)

1960: Jack Russell (Lead Singer for Great White)

1965: Johnny Rzeznik (Guitar & Vocals for The Goo Goo Dolls)

1967: Gary Allan (Country Artist)

Events

1960: Paul McCartney and Pete Best were arrested for pinning a condom to a brick wall and then igniting it. The two were told to leave Germany and The Beatles returned home, discouraged.

1961: Ray Charles was arrested in an Indianapolis hotel and charged with possession of drugs.

1967: Kenny Rogers and his group The First Edition make their television debut on CBS' Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.

1967: A passenger train derails at Hither Green near London, killing 49 people and injuring 78. Among the passengers who escaped with no injuries: the Bee Gees' Robin Gibb, who helps injured passengers from the car for three hours and is nevertheless taken to a nearby hospital in a state of shock.

1968: Peter Noone, lead singer of Herman's Hermits, marries Mireille Strasser at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Mayfair, London; the couple are still married.

1968: Graham Nash quit the Hollies. He announced the formation of Crosby, Stills and Nash three days later.

1970: Long since retired from touring with his group, Brian Wilson joins the Beach Boys on stage at the Whisky A Go-Go in Los Angeles only to suffer inner ear damage in his good ear from an excessively loud sound system. After losing his balance a few times, he is helped backstage.

1971: Two firsts at tonight's Elvis Presley show at the Metropolitan Sports Center in Minneapolis, MI: comic Jackie Kahane begins his lifelong stint as opening act, and Elvis ends the show with cape outstretched in a bizarrely Christlike pose -- another gimmick that will become a staple of Elvis' live act.

1972: The Jackson 5 Show, the group's second television special, airs on CBS.

1973: Who guitarist Pete Townshend storms off the stage at tonight's gig in Newcastle, England, after discovering that the backing track the band plays along to is running 15 seconds behind.

1978: The Charlie Daniels Band records "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" at Nashville's Woodland Sound Studios.

1979: Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones has his divorce from first wife Bianca Jagger finalized.

1982: Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys part ways on the orders of Wilson's new psychiatrist and caretaker, Dr. Eugene Landy.

1987: The Jesus And Mary Chain were banned from appearing on a US music TV show after complaints of blasphemy when the group's name was flashed across the screen. The CBS show asked the band to be called JANC but the group didn't agree.

1988: The Beach Boys set two records with their latest #1 hit, "Kokomo," which marks the group as having the longest gap between chart-toppers (21 years and ten months from 1966's "Good Vibrations") and the longest stretch of career #1s (dating back to their first, "I Get Around," 24 years and four months earlier).

1988: Kylie Minogue's version of "The Loco-Motion" hits #1 in the US, making it the first song to ever take the top spot three separate times in three different versions (the 1962 Little Eva original and the 1974 Grand Funk Railroad cover).

1992: Tom Jones guest stars on tonight's "Marge Gets a Job" episode of FOX-TV's The Simpsons, a move that revived his dormant career.

1993: Co-founder of Gin Blossoms Doug Hopkins died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds age 32. The guitarist and songwriter was in a detox unit of Phoenix's St. Luke's Hospital, Phoenix, Arizona when he snuck out and bought a .38 caliber pistol. The next day Hopkins committed suicide.

1995: A charity performance of The Wizard Of Oz is staged at New York's Lincoln Center, featuring Jewel (Dorothy), Jackson Browne (The Scarecrow), Roger Daltrey (The Tin Man), and Nathan Lane (The Cowardly Lion).

2000: The Who guest star on tonight's "A Tale of Two Springfields" episode of FOX-TV's The Simpsons.

2005: Beach Boys singer Mike Love sues former leader Brian Wilson for using his likeness and the band trademark in his promotion of the SMiLE project, a reconstructed release of the band's legendary "lost" 1967 album.

2005: Guitarist Link Wray died of heart failure at 76.