June 20

Births

1924: Chet Atkins (Country Singer & Guitarist)

1942: Brian Wilson (Singer in The Beach Boys)

1945: Anne Murray (Pop Singer)

1949: Lionel Richie (R&B Singer)

1954: Michael Anthony (Bass for Van Halen)

1960: John Taylor (Bass for Duran Duran)

1966: Stone Gossard (Lead Guitar for Pearl Jam)

1967: Murphy Karges (Bass for Sugar Ray)

1967: Jerome Fontamillas (Guitar & Keyboards for Switchfoot)

1967: Dan Tyminski (Bluegrass Singer / Songwriter in Alison Krauss & Union Station and Soggy Bottom Boys)

1971: Twiggy Ramirez (Jeordie Osborne White) (Bass for Marilyn Manson)

1973: Chino Moreno (Vocals for The Deftones)

1979: Chuck Wicks (Country Singer / Songwriter)

1983: Grace Potter (Singer for Grace Potter & The Nocturnals)

Events

1948: CBS-TV debuts its new variety show, entitled Toast Of The Town, featuring performances by Martin & Lewis and Rodgers & Hammerstein, and hosted by a New York Daily News entertainment columnist and critic named Ed Sullivan. It would go on to become The Ed Sullivan Show and become the longest-running variety show in US history at 23 years.

1959: In Paris, The management of the Lido Club calls Elvis Presley's hotel and demands that his entire female chorus line be returned in time for tonight's show.

1965: Ira Louvin (Singer & Mandolin Player in The Louvin Brothers) was hit and killed by a drunk driver at 41 years old.

1966: Capitol executives, reeling from the Beatles' latest scandal, replace the original "Butcher Cover" of the US album Yesterday and Today -- which featured the band posing with decapitated dolls and raw meat, to the horror of fans and record retailers -- with a more sedate, traditional band pose. The label decides to glue the new cover over the old one, resulting in one of the band's most prized collectibles. An unpeeled original "Butcher" fetches about $800.

1969: Northridge, CA hosts the Newport Rock festival, featuring Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Rascals, Ike and Tina Turner, Steppenwolf, Joe Cocker, Jethro Tull, and Jimi Hendrix, whose $125,000 fee is the highest ever paid to a rock act for one show.  A three day ticket cost $15.

1972: The Tallahatchie bridge in Sidon, MS, made famous by Bobbie Gentry's hit "Ode To Billie Joe," collapses. Today motorists use the newer bridge on County Road 512 to cross the river.

1973: American Bandstand airs its 20th anniversary special on ABC-TV, featuring Little Richard, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Three Dog Night, Johnny Mathis, Annette Funicello, and Cheech and Chong. It also features the first appearance of his many huge "all-star" rock jams.

1980: "It's Still Rock & Roll To Me" became Billy Joel's first #1 hit.

1981: A disco medley of oldies hits called "Stars On 45" hits #1 in the US, becoming a national phenomenon. The medley, which originated in Dutch dance clubs, begins with re-creations of Shocking Blue's "Venus" and The Archies' "Sugar Sugar" before segueing into an expert mimic of early Beatles hits.

1983: Twang king and guitar god Duane Eddy performs his first concert in fifteen years with a show in San Francisco.

1985: Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr married Angela Brown in San Francisco, California.

1987: Teddy Pendergrass marries his first and only wife, Karen Still.

1995: A Los Angeles judge rules that the Kingsmen and not their label, Scepter, are owners of the 1963 smash "Louie, Louie" and are entitled to back royalties.

1996: Westinghouse Electric becomes the first entity to cash in on the new 1996 Telecommunications Act by purchasing Infinity Broadcasting for 3.9 billion dollars. The act relaxed restrictions on how many radio and TV stations one company could own in a single market.

1997: Lawrence Payton of The Four Tops died from liver cancer aged 59.

2000: The Ronettes were awarded $2.6 million in “back earnings” from Phil Spector. New York judge Paula Omansky ruled that the legendary producer had cheated them out of royalties.

2004: Organisers at a Paul McCartney gig hired three jets to spray dry ice into the clouds so it wouldn’t rain during the concert. The gig in Petersburg, Russia, was McCartney’s 3,000 concert appearance. He had performed 2,535 gigs with the Quarrymen and the Beatles, 140 gigs with Wings and 325 solo shows.

2006: The BBC cancels its landmark weekly pop music show Top Of The Pops after a record 42 years on the air.

2008: Surrey University in England awarded Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page an honorary Doctorate in Music.

2008: American singer songwriter Jimmy Buffett announced that his Margaritaville Holdings has partnered with New York gambling company Coastal Marina to buy the Trump Marina Hotel Casino for $316 million. His vast business empire also included tequila, beer, frozen food, footwear, restaurants, a resort, a record label and a recording studio. In 2006, Rolling Stone magazine estimated Buffett's earnings at $44 million.

June 19

Births

1902: Guy Lombardo (Band Leader)

1914: Lester Flatt (Bluegrass Singer / Songwriter)

1939: Al Wilson (R&B Singer)

1942: Elaine "Spanky" McFarlane (Vocals for Spanky and Our Gang)

1948: Nick Drake (Singer / Songwriter)

1950: Ann Wilson (Singer for Heart)

1953: Larry Dunn (Keyboards for Earth, Wind and Fire)

1956: Doug Stone (Country Singer)

1962: Paula Abdul (Singer)

1963: Simon Wright (Drummer for AC/DC & Dio)

1966: Brian Vander Ark (Guitar & Lead Singer for The Verve Pipe)

1970: Head (Brian Welch) (Guitar for Korn)

Events

1958: Buddy Holly records his first solo songs, "Early In The Morning" and "Now We're One," at Decca's Pythian Temple Studios in New York.

1960: At the height of the folk-music boom, The Kingston Trio premier their own self-titled weekday show on CBS radio.

1963: For the first time, Ringo Starr uses his new Ludwig drum kit, complete with the famous "Beatles" logo, onstage as the group performs at London's Playhouse Theatre.

1965: The Four Tops went to No.1 on the US singles chart with 'I Can't Help Myself'. Lead singer Levi Stubbs had not been satisfied with the recording session and was promised that he could do it again the following day, but no other session ever took place. The track that became a hit was just the second take of the song.

1967: Answering questions about a controversial interview he'd recently given to the Daily Mirror, Paul McCartney shocks the British public by admitting on BBC television that he's taken LSD four times.

1973: A strange musical ode to sci-fi and other Fifties kitsch starring Tim Curry, The Rocky Horror Show, opens as a stage show at the Royal Court's Theatre Upstairs in London.

1973: Roberta Flack's first (and last) television special, Roberta Flack... The First Time Ever, also starring The Blossoms and Seals & Crofts, airs on ABC.

1976: "Rollermania" hits the US as the Bay City Rollers begin their first-ever American tour with a concert in Atlantic City.

1977: Six men wielding knives and iron bars outside Shepherd's Bush underground station beat up Paul Cook from The Sex Pistols. Cook required 15 stitches to a head wound.

1980: David Geffen's new self-titled record label makes its first signing... disco diva Donna Summer.

1997: Country singer Bobby Helms died from emphysema and asthma at the age of 63 .

2000: At Bob Dylan's concert in Portland, OR, British sign-language expert Professor Patrick Ladd "signs" the folk-rocker's famous lyrics for the hearing-impaired.

June 18

Births

1913: Sammy Cahn (Songwriter)

1942: Paul McCartney (Singer & Bass for The Beatles & Wings)

1942: Carl Radle (Bass for Derek and the Dominoes)

1961: Alison Moyet (Singer for Yaz and Solo)

1963: Dizzy Reed (Keyboards for Guns N' Roses)

1969: Sice Rowbottom (Guitarist & Vocals for The Boo Radleys)

1971: Nathan Morris (Boyz II Men)

1975: Silkk The Shocker (Vyshonn King Miller) (Rapper)

1976: Blake Shelton (Country Singer)

Events

1915: A.P. Carter marries Sara Dougherty in Maces Spring, VA, forming two-thirds of what would eventually, with the addition of Sara's sister, Maybelle, become country music's legendary Carter Family.

1948: The Columbia label becomes the first to mass-manufacture the new "long-playing" or "LP" record format, to be played at 33 1/3 rpm rather than the standard 78. Unlike 78 rpm discs, which only held three minutes of music, the LP could hold a full 23 minutes per side.

1967: The Beatles Apple record label is formed.

1967: After wresting the coveted closing spot from the Who, Jimi Hendrix goes to wow concertgoers at the Monterey Pop music festival by setting his guitar on fire during his set.

1974: Rare Earth drummer Peter Hoorelbeke is arrested for throwing his drumsticks into the crowd at the end of the band's concert.

1975: Elvis Presley enters Memphis' Mid-South Hospital, ostensibly to have "an extensive eye examination"; reports persist, however, that the King is actually having his crows' feet removed from his aging face.

1976: After eleven years with the group, guitarist Phil May leaves the Pretty Things.

1977: The night before their royal wedding, Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf and Silvia Sommerlath are serenaded in a Stockholm performance by the nation's biggest export, ABBA.

1977: Fleetwood Mac went to No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Dreams', the group's first and only US No.1.

1977: Johnny Rotten and Paul Cook of The Sex Pistols were stabbed and beaten when they were attacked in a car park outside a London pub.

1984: Dolly Parton releases the unfortunate career misstep Rhinestone in US movie theaters, featuring Parton as a country crooner who teaches Sylvester Stallone how to sing in the style.

1993: Having sold their label to Polygram three years earlier for half a billion dollars, A&M label founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss announce their intention to leave the company entirely. Begun in 1962, A&M was one of the first artist-owned labels, and the first successful independent label.

1995: Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace) was arrested in Camden, NJ, on robbery and aggravated assault charges.

2000: It was reported that sales of pirate music CDs had now exceeded more than 500 million a year and accounted for one in every five sold. The Phonographic Industry estimated it was costing the music industry $5.1 billion in lost sales.

2000: Rapper Nate Dogg was arrested for allegedly kidnapping his girlfriend from her mother's house, holding her against her will, assaulting her and setting a car on fire. All charges were later dismissed.

2002: Billy Joel is admitted to Connecticut's Silver Hill Hospital for ten days in order to get his drinking under control.

2004: Ray Charles' funeral is held in Los Angeles at the First AME Church, featuring performances by Stevie Wonder, Glen Campbell, B.B. King, Wynton Marsalis, and Willie Nelson. Non-performing attendees include Little Richard, Clint Eastwood, and Berry Gordy, Jr.

2007: Singer Hank Medress (The Tokens) Died of lung cancer at age 68.

2008: A Los Angeles hotel filed a lawsuit against Phil Spector for failing to pay more than $100,000 in outstanding bills for lawyers and expert witnesses in his murder trial. The Westin Bonaventure Hotel claimed that by the time Spector's trial ended with a hung jury, the defendants owed the hotel more than $104,000.

2011: Clarence Clemons, legendary saxophonist in the E Street Band who played alongside Bruce Springsteen for 40 years, died of complications from a stroke. He was 69.

2011:  Black Veil Brides singer Andy "Andy Six" Biersack fractured three ribs after falling from a balcony at the hard rock group's show in Hollywood.

2011: Tim McGraw stops his show at the Gorge Amphitheatre near George, Washington, to boot a male audience member for mistreating a woman.