November 12

Births

1944: Booker T. Jones (Piano for Booker T. and the MGs)

1945: Neil Young (Singer / Songwriter & Guitarist)

1947: Buck Dharma (Lead Vocals & Guitar for Blue Oyster Cult)

1964: David Ellefson (Bass for Megadeth)

1976: Tevin Campbell (R&B Singer)

1984: Omarion (Omari Ishmael Grandberry) (R&B Singer in B2K and Solo)

Events

1931: Abbey Road recording studios open in London's pricey St. John's Wood.

1955: Billboard begins its "Top 100" chart, with the first Number One listed as "Love Is A Many-Splendored Thing" by the Four Aces. The magazine wouldn't resolve all its pop charts into one until 1959.

1955: Hill Valley, CA native Marty McFly travels back to this date from 1985 to make sure his parents get together; while in 1955, he plays "Johnny B. Goode" at a local sock hop, inspiring Chuck Berry's "new sound." (Not really.)

1966: Teens on Los Angeles' Sunset Strip protesting a recent curfew are beaten by police, inspiring Stephen Stills to write the Buffalo Springfield hit "For What It's Worth."

1966: The Grateful Dead are the house band at a dance put on by the Hell's Angels biker gang at San Francisco's Sokol Hall.

1966: The Monkees debut album started a 13-week run at No.1 on the US album chart, selling over 3 million copies in three months.

1968: Jimi Hendrix' third album, Electric Ladyland, causes a controversy in England over the cover, which features the singer/guitarist surrounded by a bevy of naked women. A major British chain refuses to stock it; the American version is released with an alternate cover.

1969: The Supremes and the Temptations' second joint TV special, G.I.T. On Broadway, airs on NBC. (The title stands for "Gettin' It Together"; the show consisted of both groups performing show tunes.)

1970: The Doors made their last appearance with Jim Morrison in New Orleans.

1979: Kenny Rogers begins filming the CBS-TV movie The Gambler, based on his 1978 smash tune of the same name. It will spawn four sequels.

1987: Sly Stone arrives one hour late for a major comeback concert in Santa Monica, CA, only to be arrested at the gig for failure to pay child support.

1990: Ron Wood, formerly of the Faces and currently of the Rolling Stones, is badly injured when hit by a car in London, breaking both legs.

1997: Keyboardist and Singer Billy Preston is sentenced to four years in prison in California's Avenal State Prison for cocaine use and fraud when he arranged a fake burglary of his home in 1994. He will serve a year and a half.

1997: Carly Simon is hospitalized with breast cancer, undergoing both chemo and a mastectomy.

1999: Glam legend Gary Glitter is acquitted in England's Bristol Crown Court of sexual assault of a minor stemming from an incident with a fan in the Eighties; however, that same day, Glitter (real name Paul Gadd) is sentenced to four months in jail for four counts of possessing child pornography found in 1997.

2002: The city of Atlanta declared this day as TLC day to remember Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopes who was killed in a car crash on 26th April 2002 aged 30.

2003; Drummer Tony Thompson, who had played drums with Led Zeppelin at Live Aid in 1985, died of cancer. He was most famous as the drummer with Chic, whose single 'Le Freak' hit No.1 in the US. He also played on David Bowie's hit single 'Let's Dance'.

2004: The funeral of longtime (and highly influential) British DJ John Peel is held in Suffolk, England, with attendees including Robert Plant, The White Stripes, and members of Underworld, Pulp, and the Undertones.

2005: Vietnamese authorities visit Gary Glitter's home in Ba Ring Vung Tau and find his live-in companion, a fifteen-year-old girl. The singer, however, has vanished.

2007: Former Culture Club frontman, Boy George was charged with the false imprisonment of a 28-year-old man. Police said the offence was alleged to have taken place at the 47-year-old's home in Hackney, in London on 28 April of this year.

2008: Mitch Mitchell, the British drummer with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, was found dead in his US hotel room at age 61.