| 129 | years ago | 1897 | A U.S. patent is granted to inventor Guglielmo Marconi for the radio. |
| 91 | years ago | 1935 | Pete Escovedo, Mexican-born percussionist with Santana, is born. |
| 84 | years ago | 1942 | Stephen Bladd, drummer for the J. Geils Band, Roger McGuinn, guitarist and singer for the Byrds, and Jay Uzzell of The Corsairs, whose record Smokey Places would be a hit in 1962, are all born. |
| 80 | years ago | 1946 | Actor-comedian Cheech Marin is born. |
| 68 | years ago | 1958 | While on tour in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, Buddy Holly water skis across Lake Rhinelander and nearly drowns when he loses control and falls into the water. |
| 67 | years ago | 1959 | The movie Hound Dog Man, starring Fabian and Dodie Stevens, goes into production. |
| 67 | years ago | 1959 | The Shirelles release Dedicated To The One I Love. |
| 67 | years ago | 1959 | Paul Anka’s Lonely Boy hits #1. |
| 67 | years ago | 1959 | The Shirelles' Dedicated To The One I Love is released. |
| 62 | years ago | 1964 | The single A Hard Day’s Night by The Beatles is released, as is Come See About Me by The Supremes. |
| 58 | years ago | 1968 | Steppenwolf’s Born To Be Wild is released. It will be featured in the soundtrack for next year’s movie Easy Rider, which stars Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Nicholson. |
| 58 | years ago | 1968 | Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel's album, Bookends is #1 for the third week in a row. That album, along with the Mrs. Robinson soundtrack, will give the duo 16 straight weeks at #1 on the L.P. charts. |
| 58 | years ago | 1968 | Black Sabbath play their first live gig. |
| 53 | years ago | 1973 | Tensions between The Everly Brothers spill over at a show in Hollywood, where Phil Everly smashes his guitar in frustration. Don Everly continues the show on his own, announcing, “The Everly Brothers died ten years ago.” (The duo would reunite in 1983). |
| 52 | years ago | 1974 | Deborah Cox, a Canadian R&B singer-songwriter and actress, is born. Her 1998 song Nobody's Supposed to Be Here will, for 8 years, hold the record for longest-running number one single on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart (14 weeks). |
| 52 | years ago | 1974 | George McCrae's Rock Your Baby begins the first of two straight weeks at #1. |
| 52 | years ago | 1974 | Eric Clapton's I Shot The Sheriff is released. And Eric invites Todd Rundgren to play guitar during the encore of Clapton’s concert at Madison Square Garden. Todd’s guitar rig isn't working. Clapton takes off his guitar, hands it to Todd, and steps aside to listen. |
| 49 | years ago | 1977 | A Boz Scaggs show in New York is cut short due to the infamous New York City blackout. NRBQ is also playing that night in a different venue and improvises by taping flashlights to their microphone stands and playing an acoustic set. |
| 48 | years ago | 1978 | Will Champion of Coldplay is born. |
| 42 | years ago | 1984 | Philippe Wynne of The Spinners dies. |
| 42 | years ago | 1984 | Philippe Wynne, a former lead singer of the Spinners, dies of a heart attack while on stage in Oakland. |
| 41 | years ago | 1985 | The Live-Aid concerts, put together to help starving people in Africa, are held in Philadelphia and London. The shows were organized by Boomtown Rats lead singer Bob Geldof and feature The Beach Boys, The Four Tops, Paul McCartney, Tina Turner, Howard Jones, Elton John, David Bowie, The Who, Queen, Eric Clapton, and Bob Dylan, among others. It's estimated that the shows are either watched or listened to by an audience of one and a half billion. |
| 34 | years ago | 1992 | Jett Williams, illegitimate daughter of country legend Hank Williams, is granted partial royalties on his songs by a New York appeals court, adding to a ruling reached on July 5 that she should receive half of his estate. |
| 31 | years ago | 1995 | Rush vocalist Geddy Lee sings Oh Canada before the All-Star Game at Baltimore's Camden Yards. |
| 30 | years ago | 1996 | A Guinness World Record for largest jam session ever is broken when over 2,000 guitarists play a version of Elvis Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel for 75 straight minutes. |
| 26 | years ago | 2000 | James Brown is formally charged with assaulting Russell Eubanks, an employee of South Carolina Electric and Gas, with a steak knife after Eubanks visited Brown’s Beech Island estate to check on reports that he was without electricity. |
| 22 | years ago | 2004 | Arthur Kane of the New York Dolls dies of leukemia at age 55. |
| 21 | years ago | 2005 | Detroit rock-rapper Kid Rock starts moving into a three-story condo he bought in the upscale West End area of Nashville for over $800,000. One of his biggest hits was a country duet with Sheryl Crow called Picture. He's in Nashville shooting scenes for a video by country singer and pal Gretchen Wilson. |