| 69 | years ago | 1956 | Elvis Presley's film debut, Love Me Tender, opens in New York. Despite critical reaction, it takes in nearly $4 million in just two months. |
| 57 | years ago | 1968 | B.J. Thomas' Hooked On A Feeling is released. |
| 54 | years ago | 1971 | Led Zeppelin's debut, actually released in early 1969, finally goes gold. By this time, the group is getting ready for their fourth album, Led Zeppelin IV. It contains the classic Stairway to Heaven. |
| 52 | years ago | 1973 | David Bowie stars in his first TV special, 1980 Floor Show, broadcast on NBC'S Midnight Special. The special had been taped a month earlier at London's Marquee Club, a favorite of Bowie's who used to play there with his first band. It was one of the few clubs that would book him because they were considered “a very freaky band.” |
| 51 | years ago | 1974 | Director Tom O'Horgan who scored off and on Broadway with Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, tries again with an adaptation of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band. He calls it “not a play” but a “spectacle on the road.” |
| 51 | years ago | 1974 | John Lennon enjoys his first #1 hit with Whatever Gets You Through the Night. Helping out on piano and vocals is Elton John. |
| 51 | years ago | 1974 | Stevie Wonder's Boogie On Reggae Woman is released. |
| 48 | years ago | 1977 | The Canadian trio Rush receive three gold records for 2112, All the World's a Stage and A Farewell to Kings. The group, which started out as a Led Zeppelin-inspired power trio, opted for a more experimental progressive direction on those LPs and found itself a sizable audience. |
| 47 | years ago | 1978 | The Bee Gees, Peter Frampton, and Billy Preston make their acting debuts as the acting debuts as the movie version of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band opens. |
| 47 | years ago | 1978 | Queen plays at Madison Square Garden in New York with several semi-nude women bicycling on stage for their hit Fat Bottomed Girls. |
| 46 | years ago | 1979 | Young Turk record executive Ron Alexenberg's Infinity label goes out of business. The parent company, MCA Records takes on Infinity's roster of talent like Spyro Gyra, Hot Chocolate, Orleans, and Rupert Holmes. |
| 38 | years ago | 1987 | Musician Lenny Kravitz and actress Lisa Bonet marry. They will separate in 1990 and divorce in 1993. |
| 37 | years ago | 1988 | Stan Love, former Beach Boys manager and brother of lead singer Mike Love, is sentenced to five years probation for embezzling more than $300,000 from the group. |
| 21 | years ago | 2004 | A four-CD boxed set called The Beatles: The Capitol Albums Vol. 1 goes on sale, 40 years after Meet The Beatles, the first Capitol album by The Beatles was released in the U.S. At a time when rock albums seldom sold more than a few hundred thousand copies, the 1964 Beatles album sold 3.6 million copies within two months. The new boxed-set presents the songs from the first four Capitol Beatles albums in both mono and stereo versions, previously unavailable on CD. New Orleans Beatles expert and author Bruce Spizer served as a consultant on the project. |
| 18 | years ago | 2007 | Wayne Newton cancels a two-month Las Vegas engagement for the holidays, and says he'll miss the November 27th finale of ABC’s Dancing With the Stars due to a recurring viral heart infection. |
| 15 | years ago | 2010 | Averil Lavigne and Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 finalize their divorce. Each performer keeps the rights to their song catalogs, awards, and guitars. They had married in 2006. |
| 10 | years ago | 2015 | P.F. Sloan, the songwriting great behind classic singles like Barry McGuire's Eve of Destruction and Johnny Rivers' Secret Agent Man, dies after a short bout with pancreatic cancer. He also penned hits for artists like Herman's Hermits, the Turtles, the Searchers, the Grass Roots, and Barry McGuire. Sloan, who was born Philip Schlein, was 70. |