| 76 years ago (1943) | John Cipollina, guitar player for Quicksilver Messenger, is born. |
| 75 years ago (1944) | Jim Capaldi, drummer and vocalist for Traffic, is born. |
| 74 years ago (1945) | Ken Hensley, keyboardist and vocalist for Uriah Heep, is born. |
| 60 years ago (1959) | A headline in Billboard reads, “Rock and Roll Ain't Ready For The Ol' Rockin' Chair Yet.” The story says rock & roll was losing popularity a year ago, but the record buyers now like Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, and Lloyd Price along with newcomers The Drifters, Everly Brothers, and Ricky Nelson. |
| 60 years ago (1959) | Phil Phillips' Sea Of Love hits #2 on the pop charts. |
| 56 years ago (1963) | Little Stevie Wonder is the first artist to make the #1 position on the pop single chart, the pop albums chart and the R&B singles chart all at one time. In fact, nobody had made the pop single and album charts at the same time. The music from Wonder World is the album, The Twelve Year-Old-Genius and the single, Fingertips, Part Two. |
| 55 years ago (1964) | The Beatles release Matchbox/Slow Down. |
| 52 years ago (1967) | Patti Harrison convinces her husband George and the rest of The Beatles to attend a lecture at the Park Lane Hilton given by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. They go and send a note to him requesting a private audience. In the meeting, The Beatles offer themselves as disciples. He accepts and invites them to an indoctrination course for spiritual regeneration two days later. They attend along with Mick Jagger and his girlfriend Marianne Faithfull. Brian Epstein is invited but declines. |
| 51 years ago (1968) | The Who's drummer, Keith Moon, drives a Lincoln into the pool of a Holiday Inn in Flint, Michigan. |
| 51 years ago (1968) | Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild hits #2 on the pop chart. |
| 51 years ago (1968) | Billboard and New England's New Musical Express report rumors that have Diana Ross leaving the Supremes and going out on her own. |
| 50 years ago (1969) | Arlo Guthrie's film Alice's Restaurant opens. |
| 45 years ago (1974) | Grand Funk's Shinin' On peaks at #11 on the chart. |
| 45 years ago (1974) | Santana's Greatest Hits LP enters the charts. |
| 41 years ago (1978) | Bruce Springsteen appears on the cover of Rolling Stone. |
| 40 years ago (1979) | The Cars perform at New York's Central Park for an audience of a half million people. |
| 38 years ago (1981) | John Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman, is sentenced to prison for 20 years to life. Over the next few months, Chapman would claim many times to have been beaten by fellow inmates, some of whom allegedly tried to kill him with items like scissors. |
| 37 years ago (1982) | The Rolling Stones' live version of Time Is On My Side from their live LP, Still Life is released as a single. |
| 36 years ago (1983) | Jerry Lee Lewis' wife, Shawn, is found dead at the couple's Mississippi home. An autopsy reveals she died of a methadone overdose. |
| 34 years ago (1985) | Heart's What About Love peaks at #10 on the singles chart. |
| 30 years ago (1989) | The Who performs Tommy at the Universal Amphitheatre with special guests Steve Winwood, Elton John, Phil Collins, Patti LaBelle, and Billy Idol. |
| 29 years ago (1990) | Sinead O'Connor refuses to perform if the United States National Anthem is played before her show at the Garden State Arts Plaza in Homdel, New Jersey, as is custom. A patriotic uproar ensues and several radio stations ban her music. |
| 28 years ago (1991) | Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' Learning To Fly hits #28 on the pop singles chart. |
| 25 years ago (1994) | Pearl Jam drummer Dave Abruzzese quits the band. He reportedly wants to study music formally. He's replaced by Jack Irons. |
| 11 years ago (2008) | 6,000 delegates to the Democratic National Convention attend the welcoming party in Denver and groove to the Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars featuring guitarist Tab Benoit, Cyril Neville, Irma Thomas and Marva Wright, plus three of the four original Meters, the Soul Rebels Brass Band and the Wild Tchoupitoulas Mardi Gras Indians. Later that night, the same musicians perform during a private after-party at Denver's Fillmore Auditorium hosted by Friends of New Orleans, a nonprofit, nonpartisan Washington, D.C., organization that advocates on behalf of New Orleans and coastal restoration. |
| 9 years ago (2010) | Dear New Orleans, a 31-song digital benefit is realeased at numerous Web sites including Amazon.com, iTunes, Rhapsody, and eMusic.com. Performers include Steve Earle, Mike Mills of R.E.M., OK Go, Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello in his guise as protest singer The Nightwatchman, the Indigo Girls, Allison Moorer, My Morning Jacket, and New Orleans trombone collective Bonerama. Proceeds benefit Sweet Home New Orleans, which supports local musicians, Mardi Gras Indians, social aid and pleasure club members, and the Gulf Restoration Network. |
| 9 years ago (2010) | Lady Gaga surpasses Louisiana's Britney Spears as the most followed person on Twitter with 5.7 million followers. Others with over 5 million followers at the time include Ashton Kutcher, native New Orleanian Ellen DeGeneres, and President Barack Obama. |