July 17

Births

1928: Vince Guaraldi (Jazz Pianist)

1939: Spencer Davis (Multi-Instrumentalist for Spencer Davis Group)

1947: Wolfgang Flur (Percussion & Keyboards for Kraftwerk)

1947: Mick Tucker (Drums for Sweet)

1948: Ron Asheton (Guitar for The Stooges)

1949: Terence "Geezer" Butler (Bass for Black Sabbath)

1949: Mike Vale (Bass for Tommy James and the Shondells)

1950: Phoebe Snow (Singer / Songwriter & Guitarist)

1952: Nicolette Larson (Singer)

1952: David Hasselhoff (Singer ?)

1957: Bruce Crump (Drummer for Molly Hatchet)

1963: Regina Belle (R&B Singer)

1964: Craig Morgan (Country Artist)

1966: Lou Barlow (Bass for Dinosaur Jr, Sebadoh & Folk Implosion)

1975: Paul Hinojos (Bass for At The Drive-In & Mars Volta)

1976: Luke Bryan (Country Artist)

Events

1954: The Newport Jazz Festival, the world's first such event, debuts on the tennis courts of the Newport Casino in Rhode Island.

1955: Walt Disney opens his amusement park, Disneyland, in Anaheim, CA, and on the live ABC television special he introduces his new teen and pre-teen sensations, the Mousketeers, including future star Annette Funicello.

1959: Billie Holiday died in a New York City hospital from cirrhosis of the liver after years of alcohol abuse, aged 43. (While under arrest for heroin possession, with Police officers stationed at the door to her room.) In the final years of her life, she had been progressively swindled out of her earnings, and she died with $0.70 in the bank.

1967: After only seven dates as opening act for the Monkees, Jimi Hendrix flips off the audience at New York's Forest Hills Stadium, which won't stop screaming for Davy Jones, and leaves the tour. Australian journalist Lillian Roxon, on tour in an official capacity, invents a fictional story claiming that the Daughters of the American Revolution had Hendrix kicked off the tour for "corrupting the morals of America's youth." Jimi is replaced on the tour by the equally unlikely band Vanilla Fudge.

1967: Jazz Saxophone legend John Coltrane died of liver cancer at age 40.

1968: The Beatles' fourth film, the animated fantasy Yellow Submarine, premiers in London. Although the four "Beatles" in the picture are voiced by professional actors, the band itself makes a cameo in the finale, leading movie audiences through the song "All Together Now."

1972: On tour in Montreal, a bomb explodes under one of the Rolling Stones' trucks, blowing out 30 speakers but fortunately causing no injuries. Although the guilty party is never found (French separatists are suspected), the show goes on anyway. However, a small riot breaks out when three thousand of the fans discover the "tickets" they are holding are phonies.

1974: The Moody Blues open their own 32-track, state-of-the-art recording studio in London, the first in the whole country that can record in the new "Quadrophonic" process.

1974: John Lennon's appeal for US citizenship is denied by the government and he is given sixty days to leave the country.

1975: The divorce between Ringo Starr and Maureen Cox is finalized in London. Starr would marry current wife Barbara Bach in 1981.

1975: Bob Marley and the Wailers play a historic concert at London's Lyceum Theater which would feature the acclaimed Legend version of "No Woman, No Cry."

1979: Gary Moore left Thin Lizzy during a US tour and was replaced by ex Slick & Rich Kids guitarist Midge Ure.

1987: With the fate of his band up in the air, Virgin Records signs the Rolling Stones' Keith Richards to a three-album solo deal.

1987: The Ozzy Osbourne Band started a 16-week tour of US prisons.

1991: Picking up at the exact same spot in the tour where they left off, Lynyrd Skynyrd reunite after the horrible plane crash in 1974 that took the lives of three members. Lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, killed in the crash, is now replaced by his brother Johnny.

1995: Robbie Williams left Take That. The group had scored six UK No.1 singles and two No.1 albums with Robbie in the group.

1996: Bassist Chas Chandler (The Animals) died of heart failure at age 58.

1996: The Smashing Pumpkins fired Jimmy Chamberlin less than a week after Chambelin was arrested on a drug charge and Jonathan Melvoin died of a heroin overdose.

1999: Kevin Wilkinson, drummer with Howard Jones hung himself at home aged 41. Also worked with China Crisis, Holly and the Italians, Squeeze and The Waterboys.

2004: At the end of her show at the Aladdin Hotel in Vegas, Linda Ronstadt dedicates her encore, a cover of the Eagles' "Desperado," to filmmaker Michael Moore, urging fans to go see his current movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. A shocked audience reacts mostly with boos; approximately half walk out on the spot.

2005: Jamaican musician & Singer Laurel Aitken died from a heart attack. Dubbed as 'the Godfather of Ska', his 1958 'Boogie In My Bones' became the first release on the Island Record label and was No.1 on the Jamaican charts for 11 weeks.