Almanac

Rock 'n' Roll Almanac for Friday, July 11, 2025

95 years ago 1930Thurston Harris, whose 1957 hit was Little Bitty Pretty One, is born.
94 years ago 1931Tab Hunter is born. His Young Love will go to #1 in 1957.
81 years ago 1944Myra Brown, the cousin and child bride of Jerry Lee Lewis, is born.
79 years ago 1946Dean Martin begins his recording career mere weeks before teaming up with nightclub comic Jerry Lewis.
78 years ago 1947Jeff Hanna of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is born.
75 years ago 1950Bonnie Pointer, one of the Pointer Sisters, is born.
74 years ago 1951On WJW in Cleveland, Alan Freed broadcasts his first “Moondog House Rock and Roll Party,” marking the first radio show with the phrase “Rock and Roll” and giving Freed a claim on the origin of the term. More importantly, Freed plays R&B music, which introduces the sound to a new (and mostly white) audience.
72 years ago 1953Peter Brown is born. He'll have a hit in 1977 called Do Ya Wanna Get Funky With Me.
71 years ago 1954Benny DiFranco of The DeFranco Family is born.
66 years ago 1959Joan Baez makes her first recording, a duet with Bob Gibson, recorded live at the Newport Folk Festival.
65 years ago 1960Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora is born.
65 years ago 1960Singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega is born.
65 years ago 1960The Hollywood Argyles’ Alley Oop hits #1 on the chart.
63 years ago 1962The Telstar satellite, the first active communications satellite, is launched by AT&T, inspiring the Tornadoes' instrumental hit of the same name later that year.
61 years ago 1964Dean Martin’s Everybody Loves Somebody enters the charts.
61 years ago 1964The Supremes' Where Did Our Love Go? is released and enters the Hot 100. It stays on the charts for 14 weeks and becomes the group's first #1 hit.
61 years ago 1964Bobby Freeman's last big hit, C'mon and Swim makes it into the Hot 100. It will peak at #5.
60 years ago 1965Scott Shriner of Weezer is born.
59 years ago 1966Elvis Presley begins filming his 24th motion picture, Double Trouble.
58 years ago 1967A day after leaving the New Christy Minstrels, Kenny Rogers forms his own band, The First Edition.
56 years ago 1969David Bowie's single, Space Oddity, is released to coincide with the first lunar landing. It won’t be a U. S. hit until 1973.
56 years ago 1969The Rolling Stones’ Honky Tonk Women is released.
55 years ago 1970The Who's Summertime Blues is released.
55 years ago 1970The triple album soundtrack to the film Woodstock hits #1 on the album chart. And Three Dog Night's Mama Told Me Not To Come tops the singles chart.
54 years ago 1971The first stage performance of the so-called rock opera Jesus Christ, Superstar is in Pittsburgh.
51 years ago 1974The Grateful Dead receive two gold records for albums they released in 1970, Workingman's Dead and American Beauty.
51 years ago 1974The Mac Davis Show summer TV series premieres.
50 years ago 1975Lil' Kim is born. She'll have hits with No Time and Not Tonight, both in 1997.
49 years ago 1976Andy Gibb marries girlfriend Kim Reeder in Australia. And Frank Sinatra marries for the fourth time, this time to Barbara Marx, former wife of the Marx Brothers' Zeppo Marx.
48 years ago 1977Gregg Allman and Cher become parents to Elijah Blue.
46 years ago 1979Neil Young's concert film, Rust Never Sleeps, debuts at the Bruin Theatre in Westwood, CA. The movie is a documentary of his last U.S. tour. The LP of the same name is released simultaneously.
46 years ago 1979The space station Skylab crashes to Earth after 6 years in space. Leading up to the event, Electric Light Orchestra takes out ads in trade magazines dedicating its new single, Don’t Bring Me Down, to Skylab.
44 years ago 1981Longtime songwriting team Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager are divorced.
44 years ago 1981Hubert Johnson of The Contours dies.
38 years ago 1987Heart's Alone hits #1 for the first of three weeks.
35 years ago 1990Steven Adler is fired from Guns N' Roses because of his drug use. He is replaced by Matt Sorum, who was previously with The Cult.
33 years ago 1992Jerry Garcia, who has a passion for painting and studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, introduces a line of neckties he designed.
31 years ago 1994Michael Jackson's spokesperson publicly denies rampant rumors that the singer has married Lisa Marie Presley.
30 years ago 1995R.E.M. bass player Mike Mills undergoes emergency intestinal surgery in Germany. R.E.M. was in the midst of a European tour and had to cancel seven shows.
29 years ago 1996Dr. Louis Gottlieb, bassist and comic spokesman for The Limeliters, dies at age 72.
25 years ago 2000Lars Ulrich of Metallica testifies before a Senate panel to testify against websites like Napster that allow people to trade music for free over the Internet.
23 years ago 2002Over 200 people attend the funeral for The Who bassist John Entwistle in St. Edward’s Church in Stow-on-the-Wold, Gloucestershire, England. Entwistle was found dead in his Las Vegas hotel room on June 27th.
21 years ago 2004In an attempt to recapture Elvis’ record of most UK Number Ones, his first single, 1954’s That's Alright, is re-released on its 50th anniversary.
20 years ago 2005Luther Vandross dies.
20 years ago 2005Robin Thicke ties the knot with high-school sweetheart and Precious star Paula Patton. Their first son is born Julian Fuego Thicke on April 6, 2010, just shy of their 5th wedding anniversary.
18 years ago 2007Rod Lauren falls to his death from a second-floor hotel room balcony in Tracy, California. Lauren was a one-hit wonder who hit #31 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with the song If I Had a Girl in 1960 and performed twice on The Ed Sullivan Show that year.
16 years ago 2009Boom Boom Pow, after spending 12 weeks at #1, is replaced by another Black Eyed Peas song, I Gotta Feelin’.
14 years ago 2011Rob Grill of The Grass Roots dies.
14 years ago 2011Jewel and her rodeo star husband Ty Murray have their first child, Kase Townes Murray.
13 years ago 2012Florence Welch, lead woman for Florence + the Machine, faces ill health and a failing voice, causing the group to cancel two European concerts. She's forced to cancel on doctor's orders to avoid permanent damage to her famous contralto voice.

Preview Tomorrow »