| 85 | years ago | 1940 | Frank Zappa, guitarist and vocalist, is born. |
| 79 | years ago | 1946 | Carl Wilson, guitar player for the Beach Boys, is born. |
| 59 | years ago | 1966 | The Beach Boys receive three gold-record citations for the single Good Vibrations, which hit #1 eleven days ago and the albums Little Deuce Coupe and Shut Down, Vol. 2. |
| 58 | years ago | 1967 | The Rolling Stones album, Their Satanic Majesties Request is released by London Records in the U.S. |
| 57 | years ago | 1968 | Crosby, Stills and Nash perform together in public for the first time. |
| 56 | years ago | 1969 | Diana Ross gives her last performance as a member of the Supremes on The Ed Sullivan Show. |
| 55 | years ago | 1970 | Three new albums are certified gold: Traffic's reunion album, John Barleycorn Must Die, the original British studio recording of Jesus Christ Superstar and Judy Collins' In my Life. |
| 55 | years ago | 1970 | In what will become quite the photo-op, Elvis Presley goes to the White House to volunteer his services to President Nixon on fighting the nation's drug problems. He gives Nixon a chrome-plated Colt .45 while Tricky Dick gives him a Narcotics Bureau badge. |
| 53 | years ago | 1972 | Rolling Stone magazine announces the death of Memphis guitarist Ray Jackson, conposer of the hits Who's Makin' Love and I Don't Want to Be Right. He died of burns suffered in a freak fire at his home. He was 31. |
| 51 | years ago | 1974 | The Doobie Brothers' Black Water is released. |
| 46 | years ago | 1979 | The Eagles, Chicago, and Linda Ronstadt perform at a benefit show for the presidential campaign for California governor Jerry Brown, who also happens to be Ronstadt's boyfriend. The show at the San Diego Sports Arena is followed-up by a similar show at the Addin Theater in Las Vegas. The two shows bring in over $450,000. |
| 36 | years ago | 1989 | Carlos Santana and his wife Debbie become parents to daughter Angelica Faith. |
| 33 | years ago | 1992 | Blues guitarist Albert King dies of a heart attack. |
| 21 | years ago | 2004 | Lenny Kravitz releases his Baptism album. |
| 20 | years ago | 2005 | It's reported that Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant has secured a $60,000 donation for a Carefree, Arizona-based charitable organization that aids nomadic people in drought-stricken West Africa. He had committed proceeds from a four-song CD by his band, Robert Plant and the Strange Sensation, but it failed to generate the royalties he had expected. The 57-year-old rocker made an appeal to PAR Charitable Trust, a small grant-making organization, which agreed to make up the financial gap needed to build and operate school dorms for 200 children for three years. |