April 29

Births

1899: Duke Ellington (Composer & Bandleader)

1903: Bob Hope

1928: Carl Gardner (The Coasters)

1936: Sylvia Vanderpool (Mickey and Sylvia)

1942: Sir Monti Rock III (Singer in Disco Tex and his Sex-O-Lettes)

1942: Klaus Voorman (Bass for Manfred Mann & The Plastic Ono Band)

1945: Tammi Terrell (R&B Singer)

1945: Gary Brooker (Singer & Piano in Procol Harum)

1947: Tommy James (Singer in The Shondells)

1949: Francis Rossi (Guitar & Vocals in Status Quo)

1950: Joey Levine (Singer in Ohio Express, Reunion)

1955: Mike Porcaro (Bass player in Toto)

1960: Phil King (Bass for Lush)

1968: Carnie Wilson (Wilson Phillips)

1970: Master P (Rapper)

1973: Mike Hogan (Bass for The Cranberries)

1981: Tom Smith (Bass guitarist for Editors)

Events

1942: Bing Crosby recorded "White Christmas".

1958: Little Anthony and the Imperials recorded "Tears On My Pillow".

1959: Herndon Stadium in Atlanta holds one of the first outdoor rock concerts, featuring Ray Charles, Jimmy Reed, and B.B. King. Nine thousand people attend.

1967: The 14 hour Technicolour Dream benefit party for The International Times was held at Alexandra Palace in London. Seeing the event mentioned on TV, John Lennon called his driver and went to the show. Coincidentally, Yoko Ono was one of the performers. Other acts to appear included The Flies, Pink Floyd, Arthur Brown, The Move and Susie Creamcheese.

1967: Aretha Franklin's single "Respect" was released.

1971: Three dozen audiences members attending today's Grateful Dead show at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom are treated for hallucinations after drinking apple juice purposefully spiked with LSD (some say by the band themselves).

1972: After seeing his protest song "Give Ireland Back To The Irish" banned by the BBC for its content, Paul McCartney puckishly rush releases a version of the nursery rhyme "Mary Had A Little Lamb" as the followup. In the US, where no one is in on the joke, it actually makes it to #28.

1973: The Byrds officially disband for good (or so it seems) when founder and leader Roger McGuinn performs his first solo concert at New York's Academy of Music.

1973: John Denver began a weekly live UK BBC 2 TV special, 'The John Denver Show'.

1973: Mike Oldfield released the Album Tubular Bells.

1975: The Osmonds' appearance at Wembley Pool in London sets off a riot amongst fans.

1976: After a gig in Memphis Bruce Springsteen took a cab to Elvis Presley's Graceland home and proceeded to climb over the wall. A guard took him to be another crank fan and apprehended him

1977: Elvis leaves his show in Baltimore, MD for a full half-hour, angering and bewildering fans.

1980: Black Sabbath began their first tour with vocalist Ronnie James Dio, who had replaced Ozzy Osbourne.

1983: KISS play their last concert in their traditional makeup (although, reformed with all original members, they would return to the painted faces in 1996).

1987: Michael Jackson's reputed offer of $50,000 for the bones of John Merrick, the infamous "Elephant Man," is first made public.

1988: Eric Clapton filed for a divorce from Patti "Layla" Boyd.

1989: John Cipollina (Guitarist for Quicksilver Messenger Service) died on from chronic emphysema at the age of 45.

1989: Elvis Presley's first grandchild, Danielle Riley Keough, is born to Lisa Marie Presley.

1990: Floyd Butler of The Friends of Distinction, died of a heart attack at the age of 49. Had the US No.3 single ‘Grazing In The Grass’ in 1969.

1992: After the recent AIDS-related death of lead singer Freddie Mercury, the Queen song "We Are The Champions" is banned from the graduation ceremony at Sacred Heart private school in Clifton, NJ.

1992: Singer Paula Abdul and actor Emilio Estevez were married in a judge's chambers in Santa Monica, California. One of Abdul's managers and Estevez's mother witnessed the ceremony. Abdul filed for divorce two years later.

1993: Guitarist, producer, Mick Ronson died of liver cancer aged 46. Ronson recorded and toured with David Bowie from 1970 to 1973.

1993: An animated Barry White was a guest on "The Simpsons."

1995: Rapper Tupac Shakur married Keisha Morris inside the Clinton Correctional Facility, where he was serving a four-year jail term for sex abuse.

1998: Steven Tyler broke his knee at a concert in Anchorage, Alaska delaying Aerosmith's 'Nine Lives' tour and necessitating camera angle adjustments for the filming of the video for 'I Don't Want to Miss a Thing.'

1999: Tommy Lee announced that he had quit Motley Crue to devote time to his new band, Methods of Mayhem, and his family.

1999: Photographers taking shots of old cars wrecked at the bottom of Malibu's Decker Canyon discover the body of Iron Butterfly bassist Philip Kramer, who had gone missing on February 12, 1995. His death is ruled a suicide.

2003: A $5 million lawsuit against former Creedence Clearwater Revival leader John Fogerty was dismissed after a personal-injury lawyer claimed that he suffered hearing loss in his left ear from attending a Fogerty concert. The Judge said the plaintiff assumed the risk of hearing damage when he attended the concert in 1997.

April 28

Births

1926: Blossom Dearie (Jazz Singer & Pianist)

1941: Ann-Margret (Singer & Actress)

1945: John Wolters (Drummer for Dr. Hook)

1953: Kim Gordon (Bass for Sonic Youth)

1955: Eddie Jobson (Keyboards & Violin for Curved Air & Roxy Music)

1968: Daisy Berkowitz (Scott Mitchell Putesky) (Lead Guitar in Marilyn Manson)

1968: Howard Donald (Take That)

1969: Mica Paris (R&B Singer)

1973: Bigg Gipp (Cameron Gipp) Rapper in Goodie Mob

Events

1940: Glenn Miller recorded "Pennsylvania 6-5000".

1963: London hustler and PR man Andrew Loog Oldham gets his first glimpse of the Rolling Stones onstage at the Crawdaddy Club; the very next day, he becomes their manager.

1964: Elvis Presley released the single "Viva Las Vegas".

1964: The Beatles recorded the TV special ‘Around The Beatles’ at Wembley studios England. As well as performing songs they played Act V Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ with John playing the female role of Thisbe, Paul as Pyramus, George as Moonshine and Ringo as Lion. Paul later named his cat Thisbe.

1965: Barbra Streisand's first television special, My Name Is Barbra, airs on CBS.

1966: The Beatles recorded "Eleanor Rigby”.

1968: The musical Hair opens on Broadway, running for 1,729 performances, spinning off several hit covers of its soundtrack songs (Three Dog Night's "Easy To Be Hard," The Cowsills' "Hair," Oliver's "Good Morning Starshine" and 5th Dimension's "Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In") and inspiring a major motion picture.

1968: The Seeds guest star as "The Warts" on tonight's "How Not To Manage A Rock Group" episode of the NBC-TV sitcom The Mothers-In-Law.

1973: Pink Floyd's album 'Dark Side Of The Moon' went to No.1 on the US chart, it went on to enjoy a record breaking 741 weeks, selling over 20 million copies world-wide.

1975: John Lennon is the guest on tonight's episode of NBC-TV's Tonight Show, while Ringo Starr appears on NBC's Smothers Brothers Show to sing his latest hit, "No No Song."

1979: Blondie scored their first US No.1 single with “Heart Of Glass”.

1980: Tommy Caldwell died from injuries suffered in a Jeep crash.  He was bassist and original frontman for The Marshall Tucker Band between 1973 and 1980.

1981: Steve Currie (T. Rex) died in a car crash whilst returning to his home near Vale de Parra, Algarve, Portugal. He was 33 years old, and his death came less than four years after T.Rex lead singer Marc Bolan had died in a car crash.

1982: The California State Assembly consumer-protection-committee heard testimony from "experts" who claimed that when ‘Stairway To Heaven’ was played backward, contained the words: "I sing because I live with Satan. The Lord turns me off, there's no escaping it. Here's to my sweet Satan, whose power is Satan. He will give you 666. I live for Satan."

1987: Ray Charles appears before Congress to urge more funding for hearing research, stating "My eyes are my handicap, but my ears are my opportunity."

1987: The Art Of Excellence by Tony Bennett becomes the first album to be initially released on CD instead of the traditional vinyl format.

1987: On a plane that was returning to Boston, from Miami, Ozzy Osbourne bought three rounds of drinks and sang "Crazy Train" over the PA system.

1988: Country Pop singer B.W. Stevenson died undergoing heart valve surgery at the age of 38.

1989: Jon Bon Jovi and Dorothea Hurley were married. They had been high school sweethearts.

1991: Bonnie Raitt marries her first husband, actor Michael O'Keefe, in New York. The couple would divorce in 1999.

1994: Lisa Marie Presley separates from Danny Keough.

1999: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1999: The Verve announced that the band members had mutually agreed to break up the band.

1999: Marilyn Manson walked off stage during a concert in Des Moines, Iowa, when he realized that someone had put a large yellow "smiley face" on a stage prop. 23 arrests were made in the aftermath.

2000: James Brown Enterprises, which handles tours for the Godfather of Soul, has its offices destroyed by fire, destroying music and memorabilia. An employee is later charged with arson in connection with the incident.

2000: Paul Atkinson was jailed for three years after being found guilty of stealing more than $40,000 from Rolling Stone Charlie Watts. Atkinson had been the manager of an Arabian stud farm owned by Watts.

2002: Vince Neil allegedly attacked a record producer outside the Rainbow Room in West Hollywood. Neil pled guilty to the misdemeanor charge of battery on September 27, 2002.

2003: Ozzy Osbourne's son Jack went into rehab. The 17 year old was a patient at Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena, California.

2003: The iTunes Music Store opens with over 200,000 items to purchase.

2004: The iTunes Music Store marked its first anniversary with over 70 million songs sold.

2006: ABBA member Bjorn Ulvaeus is accused by the Swedish government of $12 million US in delinquency of back taxes.

2009: A TV commercial for insurance featuring Iggy Pop was ruled as misleading by the Advertising Standards Authority. In the advert, the singer was seen exclaiming that he had an insurance policy with Swiftcover but the company did not cover musicians at the time of the ad being shown. Swiftcover had since started to offer policies to musicians, and stated that Mr Pop would continue to endorse the company.

April 27

Births

1904: Syd Nathan (Country Singer)

1932: Casey Kasem (Radio DJ)

1933: Calvin Newborn (Jazz Guitarist)

1944: Cuba Gooding, Sr. (Singer in The Main Ingredient)

1947: Pete Ham (Vocals & Guitar in Badfinger)

1947: Ann Peebles (R&B Singer)

1947: Gordon Haskell (Singer King Crimson)

1947: Herbie Murrell (The Stylistics)

1947: Gordon Haskell (Blues Singer and Bassist)

1948: Kate Pierson (Vocals for The B-52's)

1949: Herb Murrell (Vocals for The Stylistics)

1951: Ace Frehley (Guitar in KISS)

1959: Marco Pirroni (Guitar for Adam And The Ant)

1959: Sheena Easton (Singer)

1972: Bob Coombes (Keyboards for Supergrass)

1979: Will Boyd (Bass for Evanescence)

1984: Patrick Stump (Lead singer & Rhythm Guitarist for Fall Out Boy)

Events

1956: Capitol Records signs Gene Vincent, intending to market him as the next Elvis.

1957: Elvis makes his second and last appearance outside of the US, wearing his classic gold lame suit for the last time as he plays Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens.

1959: Lloyd Price, released the single "Personality".

1964: The Beatles release the single  "Love Me Do" b/w "P.S. I Love You".

1968: Simon and Garfunkel release the single  "Mrs. Robinson".

1969: Joe Cocker makes his television debut, singing "Feelin' Alright" on tonight's episode of CBS' Ed Sullivan Show.

1969: Jose Feliciano's TV special Very Special, guest starring Glen Campbell and Dionne Warwick, airs on NBC.

1970: John Lennon's explicit "Bag One" lithographs are returned to the London Arts Gallery exhibition after a High Court judge rules them "unlikely to deprave or corrupt."

1971: The Grateful Dead appeared at the Fillmore East in New York City. The Beach Boys also appeared on stage with the Dead, who together performed a short set of Beach Boys songs.

1975: 511 audience members are in custody in Los Angeles for smoking marijuana during Pink Floyd's recent five nights at the Los Angeles Arena.

1976: David Bowie is detained at the Poland-Russian border after Nazi memorabilia (mostly books) are found in his luggage. The singer, who claims they're research for an upcoming film about Joseph Goebbels, is released.

1979: At a Duke Ellington tribute concert held at UCLA, Stevie Wonder makes a surprise appearance to sing his hit tribute "Sir Duke" and also Ellington's own "C-Jam Blues."

1980: The legendary New York disco of discos, Studio 54, closes its doors after exactly three years and a day due to violations of city liquor licenses.

1981: Ringo Starr marries his second wife, actress Barbara Bach, a former "Bond girl" and model he met while filming the flop comedy Caveman. The two are married at the Marylebone Registrar's Office in London with the other two surviving Beatles attending.

1984: Blues Singer Z.Z. Hill died in Dallas at the age of 48 from a heart attack after a road accident.

1987:  R.E.M.'s first single, "Dead Letter Office", was released.

1988:  Poison released the album "Open Up and Say...Ahh!"

1988: Queensryche released the album "Operation: Mindcrime."

1990:  Axl Rose (Guns N' Roses) married Erin Everly. The marriage lasted for 27 days.

1990: David Bowie plays his Seventies hits for the last time as he begins his latest American tour, "Sound + Vision."

1993: Prince issued a statement saying he was retiring from studio recordings to concentrate on film and other ventures.

1994: San Francisco's legendary rock venue the Fillmore Auditorium reopens, with performances by Smashing Pumpkins and American Music Club.

1994: A man was arrested after breaking into Ace Of Base singer Jenny Berggren's home. Jenny was asleep at the time and woke up to find the man above her holding a hunting knife.

1999: Jazz trumpeter Al Hirt died, aged 76, in New Orleans of liver failure, after spending the previous year in a wheelchair due to edema in his leg.

1999: UK band The Verve announced that they had split.

2000: Vicki Sue Robinson died eleven days after the release of Red Lipstick.  Robinson died of cancer at her home in Wilton, Connecticut. She was thirty-five days short of reaching the age of 46. 

2003: Iggy Pop reuintes with the Stooges for the first time in three decades at the close of this year's Coachella festival.

2004: Elton John publicly responds to American Idol's snub of Jennifer Hudson by declaring the call-in voters "incredibly racist."

2006: 63-year-old Keith Richards falls from a palm tree while vacationing in Fiji, landing on his head and causing a hemorrhage that required doctors to drain his skull. He makes a full recovery.

2009: Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament was the victim of a robbery outside Southern Tracks Recording studios in Atlanta, where the band were recording. Ament and a band employee had arrived at the rear of the studio when three assailants brandishing knives emerged from the woods wearing black masks and smashed the windows of a rented Jeep. The robbers grabbed a BlackBerry and Ament’s passport and stole $3,000 in cash and $4,320 worth of goods.

2009: Aerosmith were to hold a free concert in Hawaii to placate angry fans who brought a legal case against them. Fans filed a class action case, which claimed the band had cancelled a sold-out show in Maui two years ago, leaving hundreds of fans out of pocket in favour of a bigger gig in Chicago. Lawyers for the would-be concert-goers said Aerosmith had now agreed to put on a new show, and would pay all expenses. ‘Everyone who bought a ticket to the original concert will receive a free ticket.

April 26

Births

1925: Jorgen Ingmann (Violinist)

1938: Maurice Williams (Doo-Wop Singer)

1938: Duane Eddy (Guitarist)

1940: Giorgio Moroder (Electronic Music producer)

1941: Claudine Clark (R&B Singer)

1942: Bobby Rydell (Pop Singer)

1943: Gary Wright (Piano Player & Singer)

1944 - Bruce Johnston (Beach Boys)

1945: Tony Murray (Bassist for The Troggs)

1946: Ronny Dayton (Ronny and the Daytonas)

1948 - Stevie Nicks (Singer in Fleetwood Mac and Solo)

1952: Neol Davies (Selecter)

1960: Roger Taylor (Drums for Duran Duran)

1961: Chris Mars (Drums for The Replacements)

1970: Tionne Watkins, T- Boz (Vocals for TLC)

1971:  Jay DeMarcus, (Stanley Wayne DeMarcus Jr.) (Bassist for Rascal Flatts)

1975: Joey Jordison (Drums for Slipknot)

1976: Jose Antonio Pasillas II (Drummer for Incubus)

Events

1957: Calypso star Harry Belafonte resigns to his record label, RCA Victor, for an unprecedented million dollars.

1962: Jerry Lee Lewis, still stricken from the tragedy of losing his three-year-old son Steve Allen Lewis in a swimming pool drowning, arrives in the UK to tour for the first time since he was forced out in 1958 for marrying his 13-year-old cousin.

1963: Teen idol Frankie Avalon agrees to star in Beach Party, the first of what would become known as the "Beach Movies" starring himself and Annette Funicello.

1964: The Beatles attend a birthday party for Roy Orbison in London (Orbison had actually turned 28 three days earlier). That night, the group headlines the poll winner's concert for the magazine New Musical Express, which also features fan favorites The Rolling Stones and the Dave Clark Five.

1965: Bob Dylan makes his first trip to England to promote his new album, called Bringing It All Back Home. The tour is chronicled by filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker for a film that will eventually become the iconic Don't Look Back.

1966: According to the New York Times, Ray Charles is being forced to undergo tests in Boston to confirm that he has kicked the heroin habit, as ordered by a court after a drug-possession rap the previous year.

1967: Janis Ian, then only sixteen, appears on Leonard Bernstein's CBS special Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution, singing her single from a year earlier, "Society's Child." Though the song, which details a forbidden interracial relationship, was banned from airwaves in its initial run, this exposure turns it into a Top 20 hit.

1967: The Mamas and the Papas' "Mama Cass" Elliot gives birth to her one and only child, daughter Owen Vanessa. She would take the father's name to the grave.

1969: The Original Cast of 'Hair' started a 13-week run at No.1 on the US album chart.

1977: The disco boom gets rolling in earnest with the opening of Steve Rubell's new glitzy and ultra-exclusive club, Studio 54, in New York. Among the guests invited opening night: Cher, Mick Jagger and wife Bianca, Debbie Harry, Donald and Ivana Trump, Liza Minnelli, Jerry Hall, Halston, Margaux Hemingway, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Salvador Dali, Brooke Shields, Martha Graham, and Robin Leach.

1978: Ringo Starr plays two roles in a musical version of Prince and the Pauper entitled simply Ringo, also starring Art Carney, John Ritter, Carrie Fisher, Vincent Price, Angie Dickinson, Mike Douglas, and featuring George Harrison's narration. Airing on NBC, the show is a dismal flop.

1980: Blondie were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Call Me', the group's fourth UK No.1, featured in the Richard Gere movie 'American Gigolo', the track was also a No.1 in the US where it became the band's biggest selling single. Producer Giorgio Moroder originally asked Stevie Nicks from Fleetwood Mac to help compose and perform a song for the soundtrack, but she declined.

1980: The Carpenters' fifth TV variety special, entitled Music, Music, Music and also starring John Davidson and Ella Fitzgerald, airs on ABC.

1982: While shopping for clothes on Hollywood Boulevard in the middle of the day, Rod Stewart is robbed at gunpoint of, among other things, his $50,000 Porsche.

1984: Count Basie died of pancreatic cancer in Hollywood, Florida.

1988: A jury in White Plains, New York ruled that Mick Jagger did not pirate an unknown reggae musician's song and turn it into his 1985 hit, 'Just Another Night'. Patrick Alley of New York City had accused Jagger of copyright infringement.

1990: New Kids On The Block's Danny Wood injured his ankle while on stage in Manchester when he tripped over a toy animal thrown on stage by a fan; he was forced to fly back home to the US for treatment.

1994: The Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick pleads guilty to assault after turning a shotgun on police who visited her California home the previous month. Although she claims she was edgy due to a recent fire, the judge nonetheless sentences her to a short stint in Alcoholics Anonymous.

1995: Courtney Love reportedly turned down an offer of $1m from Playboy to pose nude for the magazine.

1997: Ernest Stewart, keyboard player with KC and the Sunshine Band, died of an asthma attack.

2003: The Morgan Creek Bridge in Chapel Hill, NC, is renamed the James Taylor Bridge in honor of the city's native son.

2004: June Pointer of the Pointer Sisters is arrested in Los Angeles for possession of cocaine.

2008: Amy Winehouse spent the night in custody after being arrested on suspicion of assault. Police said Winehouse had been "in no fit state" to be questioned when she arrived at the London station and she was kept in the cells. The 24-year-old was to be questioned about an incident said to have occurred 3 days earlier after a 38-year-old man claimed he was assaulted.