| 72 | years ago | 1954 | Nancy Wilson of Heart is born. |
| 71 | years ago | 1955 | Roy Hamilton's Unchained Melody is released by Epic Records. The tune climbs to #6 and is later recorded by the Righteous Brothers in 1965. |
| 67 | years ago | 1959 | Plans are released for the first U.S. rock & roll package tour to hit Europe. Performers include Conway Twitty, Duane Eddy, Bobby Darin, Dale Hawkins, and the Poni Tails, with guest star Cliff Richard. The event begins April 22 in London. |
| 67 | years ago | 1959 | Rapper Flavor Flav of Public Enemy is born. |
| 63 | years ago | 1963 | Jimmy DeGrasso is born. |
| 63 | years ago | 1963 | Peter, Paul & Mary's Puff The Magic Dragon is released. |
| 62 | years ago | 1964 | Capitol releases The Beatles’ Can't Buy Me Love backed with You Can't Do That. Advanced orders are over one-and-a-half million. The song debuts at #1. |
| 62 | years ago | 1964 | Alan Freed is charged with tax evasion, the grand jury indictment stemming from the earlier payola investigation which ruined the career of the ex-DJ who helped put rock & roll in the forefront. |
| 56 | years ago | 1970 | Tammi Terrell, best known for her duets with Marvin Gaye, dies at Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia after undergoing six brain tumor operations in 18 months. Doctors first discovered Terrell's brain tumor after she collapsed in Gaye's arms onstage in 1967. She was 24 years old. |
| 55 | years ago | 1971 | Bob Dylan's records Watchin' the River Flow with Leon Russell playing piano. It’s released as a single and is later included on Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Vol II. |
| 55 | years ago | 1971 | The 13th Annual Grammy Award Winners are announced and the big winner is Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon & Garfunkel (Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists, Best Engineered Record and Best Contemporary Song). |
| 47 | years ago | 1979 | Twisted Sister, a Long Island bar band formed six years ago, is the first to headline and sell out New York City's 3,000-seat Palladium without the benefit of a record. It will be another three years until the band signs a record deal. |
| 27 | years ago | 1999 | Former Yardbird Jeff Beck releases his solo album Who Else! |
| 21 | years ago | 2005 | Jakson Spires, the powerhouse drummer of Blackfoot and The Southern Allstars, dies in a Florida hospital where he had been on life support for three days. Jakson suffered “something like a brain aneurysm,” when a blood vessel burst in his brain. |
| 20 | years ago | 2006 | A spokesman for Michael Jackson says the King of Pop has closed his house and Neverland Ranch, cutting loose most of its employees after giving them hundreds of thousands of dollars in back pay to avoid a lawsuit by the California Department of Industrial Relations. Michael is now living in the Middle Eastern country of Bahrain. |
| 11 | years ago | 2015 | Andy Fraser, bassist with Free and co-composer of the classic All Right Now, dies at age 62. Fraser had been battling both cancer and AIDS since the 80's. Molly Hatchet’s original drummer Bruce Crump also passes on today at age 57. No immediate cause is announced.
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