April 13

Births

1942: Bill Conti (Composed “Rocky” Theme)

1944: Jack Casady (Bass for Jefferson Airplane)

1945: Lowell George (Guitarist for Little Feat)

1946: Al Green (R&B Singer)

1946: Roy Loney (Guitar & Vocals for The Flamin' Groovies)

1951: Max Weinberg (Drummer for The E Street Band)

1951: Peabo Bryson (R&B Singer)

1952: Sam Bush (Bluegrass Mandolin Player)

1953: Randy Piper (Guitar for W.A.S.P.)

1954: Jimmy Destri (Keyboards for Blondie)

1955: Louis Johnson (Bass for The Brothers Johnson)

1961: Butch Taylor (Keyboards for Dave Matthews Band)

1962: Hillel Slovak (Original Guitarist for The Red Hot Chili Peppers)

1966: Marc Ford (Guitar for The Black Crowes)

1972: Aaron Lewis (Vocals for Staind & Solo)

1975: Lou Bega (Singer)

1982: Nellie McKay (Singer / Songwriter)

Events

1959: George Jones nets his first #1 country single in Billboard as a recording artist with "White Lightning".

1962: The Beatles begin their legendary stint at the new Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany. Performing three to four hours a night for 48 days (with only one day off), the group logs a total of 172 hours of performance. When they return to England, they're already stars with a recording contract.

1965: At tonight's Grammy ceremonies in Los Angeles, Roger Miller is the big winner, taking home five awards (a first for a country artist at the Grammys) Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto win Record of the Year for "The Girl From Ipanema" and Album of the Year for Getz/Gilberto. The Beatles win Best New Artist and Best Performance by a Vocal Group for "A Hard Day's Night."

1965: The Beatles recorded "Help!"

1967: The Rolling Stones play their first-ever gig behind the "Iron Curtain" of Soviet countries with a performance in Warsaw. When the club is overrun by kids without tickets, the local police react by dispersing the crowd with tear gas.

1969: Diana Ross makes her first television appearance as a solo act, performing on Dinah Shore's NBC special Like Hep.

1973: Roger Daltrey (The Who) released his first solo album "Daltrey."

1979: Five days into Van Halen's latest tour, David Lee Roth collapsed from exhaustion on stage at Spokane Coliseumin, Washington.

1980: After $8 million in ticket sales and 3,883 performances, a record run for the time (not to mention one major motion picture), the Fifties musical Grease closes on Broadway.

1982: Still awaiting trial on a concealed weapon and illegal drug possession charge three weeks earlier, David Crosby is again arrested in Dallas after local police find him preparing a "speedball" of cocaine backstage before a show.

1985:  "The Grand Ole Opry" debuted on television.

1993: the first ‘Aerosmith Day’ was observed in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts after the band were given their very own holiday.

1994: After nine years of a very public marriage, Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley announce they have separated. They will divorce later in the year.

1995: In the summer of 1994 Burl Ives was diagnosed with oral cancer after being hospitalized for back surgery. After several operations he decided against having further surgery. In April 1995 he fell into a coma. Ives died of complications of mouth cancer on this day and is buried in Mound Cemetery in Hunt City Township, Jasper County, Illinois.

1996: Rage Against The Machine appeared on NBC's Saturday Night Live. Their two-song performance was cut to one song when the band attempted to hang inverted American flags from their amplifiers.

2000: Gavin Rossdale (Bush) collapsed at the end of a show in Los Angeles. Tests were planned even though he was feeling much better the next day.

2003: Madonna struck back at web sites who were offering illegal downloads of her new album, ‘American Life’ by flooding file-sharing networks with decoy files. When the files were opened they were greeted by the voice of Madonna asking, "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" The latest Madonna album has been kept under tight wraps to avoid piracy, with promotional copies being held back from journalists until just before the official release.

2008: Producer and drummer Clifford Davies was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his home in Atlanta, aged 59. Davies had worked with Ted Nugent from 1979-1982. It was reported that Davies was "extremely distraught" over outstanding medical bills.

2009: 68-year-old US music producer Phil Spector was convicted of murdering actress Lana Clarkson, after a five-month retrial, He had pleaded not guilty to the second degree murder of 40-year-old Ms Clarkson, who was shot in the mouth at Spector's home in Los Angeles. During the five-month retrial, five female acquaintances testified that Spector had threatened them at gunpoint in incidents dating back to the 1970s. An earlier trial was abandoned in 2007 after a jury failed to reach a unanimous decision. Spector was remanded in custody until sentencing on May 29, 2009.

2009:  In the UK, Procol Harum's ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ was the most played song in public places in the past 75 years, according to a chart compiled for BBC Radio 2. Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was at number two followed by 'All I Have To Do Is Dream' by the Everly Brothers. Wet Wet Wet's 1994 hit, 'Love Is All Around', was at number four followed by Bryan Adams's 1991 hit '(Everything I Do), I Do It For You.'

2011: A portrait of Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett was returned to the London art gallery it had been stolen from the previous week. The late singer's former girlfriend, Libby Gausden, pleaded for its safe return and offered a reward of $35,000, and following an appeal, the image was returned undamaged and intact to the gallery by post.