July 26

Births

1940: Dobie Gray (Pop Singer)

1943: Mick Jagger (Singer for The Rolling Stones)

1949: Roger Taylor (Drummer for Queen)

1961: Gary Cherone (Vocalist for Extreme & Van Halen)

1965: Jim Lindberg (Singer for Pennywise)

1980: Dave 'Brown Sound' Baksh (Lead Guitar & Keyboards for Sum 41)

Events

1965: Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson marries Carol Freedman, the first of what would be four wives, in Los Angeles.

1968: Much to Mick Jagger's fury, the new Rolling Stones album Beggar's Banquet, scheduled to be released today in the US, is held back after Atlantic fears the cover, featuring a filthy men's room urinal with graffiti on the walls, will be found offensive. The album is eventually released with an all-white cover that looks like an invitation. (The original cover is now available on CD.)

1968: The Jackson 5, discovered by Motown mainstay Gladys Knight (not, as legend has it, Diana Ross), signs to the label today for a one-year contract.

1969: The Rolling Stones' founding member and guitarist Brian Jones, found dead in his swimming pool just weeks earlier, is memorialized on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine which was on sale for 35 cents.

1969: The 5th Dimension's two lead singers, Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr. are married. The duo will score their own hit in 1977 with "You Don't Have To Be A Star (To Be In My Show)."

1974: London graffiti artists hired by the Rolling Stones' management spray paint various local sites as promotion for the groups' latest single, "It's Only Rock And Roll."

1976: With endless touring and recording, as well as various addictions, tearing the band apart, Three Dog Night plays their last concert tonight in San Francisco, CA. (The group would reunite in 1981, but that reunion would prove short-lived.)

1977: While on tour in New Orleans, Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant receives shocking news by phone: his eldest son Karac has died of a respiratory infection, causing the remainder of the group's tour dates to be canceled -- and rumors to begin swirling about guitarist Jimmy Page's interest in the occult and a "curse" it might have laid on the band.

1977: Elvis Costello was arrested as he performed outside a CBS Records sales conference at The London Hilton Hotel and was fined $10.

1984: Prince's movie "Purple Rain" premiered in Hollywood, CA.

1987: Billy Joel plays an historic concert in Leningrad, one of the first major filmed concerts behind the "Iron Curtain" of Soviet Russia and a huge hit with local fans, who carry Joel off the stage in triumph at the end of the set. The show will eventually be released as the album KOHUEPT (Concert).

1990: Brent Mydland (Keyboardist for The Grateful Dead) died from a drug overdose at age 38.

1992: KISS frontman Paul Stanley marries Pamela Bowen. They divorced in 2001.

1992: American singer and Motown artist, Mary Wells, referred to as The First Lady of Motown and who had a 1964 US No. 1 single ‘My Guy’, dies aged 49 of laryngeal cancer. Forced to give up her career and with no health insurance, forced to sell her home, Wells’ old Motown friends including Diana Ross, Mary Wilson, The Temptations and Martha Reeves, along with Dionne Warwick, Rod Stewart, Bruce Springsteen, Aretha Franklin and Bonnie Raitt, personally pledged donations in support.

2000: The file-sharing service Napster is ordered by a US federal judge to cease trading copyrighted music files in the next 48 hours.

2000: The Beastie Boys postponed their tour with Rage Against the Machine due to Mike D.'s shoulder injury incurred July 22 in a bicycle accident.

2000: Oasis were booed off stage during a show at the Paleo Festival in Switzerland after singer Liam Gallagher had insulted the 35,000 strong audience.  They were hit with bottles, cans and coins.

2001: Sir Paul McCartney announced his engagement to Heather Mills, the anti-landmine campaigner and former model. The couple split-up in 2006.

2003: Vegas mainstay Tom Jones in inducted into the Gaming Hall Of Fame, along with Harrah's exec Phil Satre.

2006: Arvel Jett Reeves is sentenced to eight months in jail for "bugging" Michael Jackson's Gulfstream jet with two digital video recorders in order to get some media-worthy private conversation.

2006: Paul McCartney's first guitar is sold at an Abbey Road Studios auction for about half a million dollars.