February 2

Births

1927: Stan Getz (Jazz Sax Player)

1942: Graham Nash (Singer / Songwriter in The Hollies & Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young)

1947: Farrah Fawcett (Just Because)

1949: Ross Valory (Bass for Journey & Steve Miller Band)

1963: Eva Cassidy (Singer)

1965: Steve Firth (Bass for Embrace)

1966: Robert Deleo (Bass for Stone Temple Pilots)

1977: Shakira (Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll) (Singer)

1980: Gucci Mane (Radric Davis) (Rapper)

Events

1957: Fats Domino makes an appearance on 's The Perry Como Show singing his hits "Blue Monday" and "Blueberry Hill."

1959: Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper play their last show as part of the "Winter Dance Party" tour, stopping this night at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, IA. Admission: $1.25. The last song of the night: The Big Bopper's "Chantilly Lace."

1969: "Carl Perkins Day" is declared in Jackson, TN, where the singer moved with his family at 18.

1969: Yoko Ono divorced her husband Tony Cox, Yoko was granted custody of their daughter Kyoko. John Lennon and married Yoko the following month on 30th March.

1973: Emerson, Lake, and Palmer keyboard player Keith Emerson injures his hands when a rigged piano explodes prematurely during a San Francisco gig, leaving him with minor cuts and a broken fingernail.

1973: Elvis Presley meets boxer Muhammed Ali in Las Vegas, presenting him with a robe emblazoned with the words "The People's Champion." Ali responds by giving Elvis boxing gloves inscribed "You're the greatest" (left) and "To Elvis, my main man, from Muhammad Ali" (right). Ali recollects later: "I felt sorry for him because he didn't enjoy life the way he should. He stayed indoors all the time. I told him he should go out and see people."

1973: NBC debuts The Midnight Special rock variety show, its response to ABC's popular In Concert series. The first host: Helen Reddy.

1976: Genesis released 'A Trick Of The Tail', their seventh studio album and the first to feature drummer Phil Collins as full-time lead vocalist following the departure of original vocalist Peter Gabriel. After auditioning over 400 vocalists, which saw Collins teaching the potential lead singers the songs, the band decided that Collins should be the new vocalist.

1979: Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious died of a heroin overdose in New York City at age 21. There had been a party to celebrate Vicious' release on $50,000 bail pending his trial for the murder of his former girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, the previous October. Party guests, said that Vicious had taken heroin at midnight. An autopsy confirmed that Vicious died from an accumulation of fluid in the lungs that was consistent with heroin overdose. A syringe, spoon and heroin residue were discovered near the body.

1992: Todd Rundgren and wife Michele become the proud parents of a son they name "Rebop."

1993: Willie Nelson settles his $17 million tax debt with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service by paying them nine million dollars in cash and assets already seized.

1996: Gene Kelly died after a stroke he had a year earlier at age 83.

1999: Freddy Fender is awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2007: US keyboardist Joe Hunter, a veteran session musician as one of the Funk Brothers who helped craft the distinctive Motown sound, died of natural causes in Detroit, Michigan, at the age of 79.

2010: Tim McGraw and Gwyneth Paltrow shoot concert footage for the movie "Country Strong" at Nashville's Municipal Auditorium. The Lost Trailers entertain extras during the day.

2011: Zac and Shelly Brown have a daughter, Joni Mason Brown, at their home in the Atlanta area.

February 1

Births

1937: Don Everly (Singer in The Everly Brothers)

1939: Del McCoury (Bluegrass Musician)

1948: Rick James (R&B Singer / Songwriter)

1951: Sonny Landreth (Blues Guitarist)

1954: Mike Campbell (Guitar for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers)

1954: Chuck Dukowski (Bass for Black Flag)

1956: Exene Cervenka (Singer for X & Solo)

1957: Dennis Brown (Reggae Artist)

1964: Jani Lane (Singer for Warrant)

1968: Lisa Marie Presley (Singer)

1969: Patrick Wilson (Drummer for Weezer)

1971: Ron Welty (Drummer for The Offspring)

1971: Dexter (Michael C. Hall) (Actor)

1975: Big Boi (Antoine Patton) (Rapper in Outkast & Solo)

1994: Harry Styles (Singer in One Direction)

Events

1940: Frank Sinatra sang "Too Romantic" and "The Sky Fell Down" in his first recording session with the Tommy Dorsey Band. Frank replaced Jack Leonard as lead singer with the band.

1941: Downbeat magazine reports that Glenn Miller has signed a new three-year contract with RCA Victor... for the unprecedented sum of $750 per side.

1949: In response to Columbia's recent 33-1/3 "long play," or LP, vinyl record, RCA Victor unveils the first 45-rpm, 7-inch version, as well as a phonograph that plays the new invention. The vinyl "single" would eventually kill off the old 78-rpm record.

1962: Brian Epstein's managerial contract with the Beatles officially goes into effect.

1963: Paul Simon graduates from New York City's Queens College.

1964: Newsmen learn that Indiana Governor Matthew Walsh has banned the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie," then sitting at Number Six on Billboard's Hot 100, for allegedly containing obscene lyrics. Claiming it makes his "ears tingle" to listen to it, Walsh requests that the Indiana Broadcasters Association ban the record from airplay on all radio stations in the state. For his part, the song's publisher, Max Firetag, offers $1000 to anyone who can prove that the song contains obscene lyrics. The FBI eventually gets involved, and after extensive study reports that the lyrics of this version of the song, originally recorded by Richard Berry and the Pharoahs, are so garbled as to be unintelligible.

1968: Nine months after their marriage, Elvis Presley and Priscilla Beaulieu Presley become the proud parents of their only child, Lisa Marie, delivered at Memphis' Baptist Memorial Hospital. She remains Elvis' only offspring and sole heir.

1968: The Doors announce that Universal International film studios have offered the group an unprecedented half-million dollars to star in a feature film. An ABC television special, a group "humor book," and a book of poetry by leader Jim Morrison are also announced as in the planning stages. The poetry book alone will see the light of day.

1973: Gladys Knight and the Pips leave Motown's Soul label for a new career at Buddah.

1974: Guitarist Eric Bell leaves Thin Lizzy due to ill health brought on by alcohol abuse.

1975: On her seventh birthday, Lisa Marie Presley gets to meet her favorite singer, Elton John (a meeting arranged by her father).

1976: Despite the very public divorce of its two stars and two ill-fated solo variety shows in the interim, the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour reappears on CBS as The Sonny and Cher Show.

1977: Led Zeppelin's North American tour is postponed due to tonsillitis in lead singer Robert Plant.

1982: Memphis, TN mayor Wyeth Chandler declares today "Bar-Kays Day" in honor of Otis Redding's backup band, who went on to success in their own right with "Soul Finger."

1985: The Eagles' Glenn Frey makes his acting debut in an episode of NBC's Miami Vice.

1986: Diana Ross weds Norwegian businessman Arne Naess in Geneva, Switzerland.

2000: Guitarist C.C. DeVille announced that he was leaving Poison. The band later convinced him to come back.

2002: Winona Ryder was charged with four felony counts that stemmed from her shoplifting arrest on December 12, 2001. She was charged with theft, burglary, vandalism and possession of a controlled substance.

2012: Don Cornelius, the host of US TV's Soul Train, (from 1971 until 1993) died. Police officers responded to a report of a shooting at 12685 Mulholland Drive and found Cornelius with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was 75.

January 31

Births

1921: Mario Lanza (Italian Singer)

1923: Carol Channing (Broadway Singer)

1944: Charlie Musselwhite (Blues Harmonica Player)

1946: Terry Kath (Guitar for Chicago)

1951: KC (Harry Wayne Casey) (Vocals & Keyboards in KC and the Sunshine Band)

1951: Phil Manzanera (Lead Guitar in Roxy Music)

1954: Vandenberg (Adrian Vandenberg) (Guitarist for Vanderberg & Whitesnake)

1956: Johnny Rotten (John Lydon) (Lead Vocals for Sex Pistols & Public Image Lmt.)

1961: Lloyd Cole (Singer / Songwriter)

1964: Jeff Hanneman (Guitar for Slayer)

1967: Fat Mike (Michael John Burkett) (Lead Vocals & Bass for NoFX & Me First and the Gimme Gimmes)

1967: Jason Cooper (Drums for The Cure)

1981: Justin Timberlake (Singer for N’Sync & Solo, Pimp)

Events

1959: Just three days before their death in a plane crash, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper play the Armory in Duluth, MN. In attendance: a seventeen-year-old Robert Zimmerman, who would be inspired to become a musician by this performance. We now know him as Bob Dylan.

1961: NBC airs the Bobby Darin And Friends television special, originally meant as a pilot for a weekly variety series.

1963: A seventeen-year-old Neil Young makes his stage debut at a country club in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

1967: While in Sevenoaks, Kent, England, John Lennon visits an antique shop and purchases a circus poster from 1843. It is this poster which inspires most of the lyrics to the Beatles' "Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite."

1969: Billy Preston signs with Apple Records.

1970: Blues musician Slim Harpo died of a heart attack while recording in London at age 46.

1970: The Jackson Five went to No.1 on the US singles chart with 'I Want You Back'. The song was originally written for Gladys Knight & The Pips and was the first of four No.1's for the group.

1970: In New Orleans, the Grateful Dead are arrested for possession of LSD and barbituates, an incident which would inspire one of their most famous songs, "Truckin'." (Apparently the band had fun afoul of mob interests in Texas, and the mob alerted the NOPD. This explains lines like "Houston, too close to New Orleans" and "Set up, like a bowling pin.")

1971: The Jackson 5 are given the key to their hometown of Gary, IN, by Mayor Robert Pastrick.

1972: Mahalia Jackson's funeral is held at Chicago's Great Salem Baptist Church. Over 40,000 mourners attend the open-casket service, which features a closing version of "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" performed by Aretha Franklin.

1978: Greg Herbert saxophone player with Blood Sweat & Tears died of an accidental drug overdose in Amsterdam, Holland at age 30.

1979: Bo Diddley opens up for punk band The Clash at the beginning of their first US tour.

1985: Creedence Clearwater Revival's John Fogerty gives his first live performance in fourteen years at the Chaplin Stage in Hollywood, CA.

1998: The Bruce Springsteen "Come Together" benefit concert, organized for the family of a New Jersey police officer killed in the line of duty, turns into an impromptu E Street Band reunion that also features Southside Johnny and other Jersey musicians.

2001: It was announced that Peter Criss was leaving KISS and that he would be replaced by Eric Singer for the remainder of dates of the farewell tour. Criss' last show was on October 7, 2000.

2010: Beyoncé set a Grammy record for females when she won six. The six awards were Song Of The Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, Best Traditional R&B Vocal Performance, Best R&B Song, and Best Contemporary R&B Album.