| 70 | years ago | 1956 | Bernard Sumner of New Order and Joy Division is born. |
| 69 | years ago | 1957 | Fats Domino records I'm Walkin' in New Orleans. The single will reach #4 on the pop chart and #1 on the R&B chart in April. |
| 69 | years ago | 1957 | Former heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis appears on The Steve Allen Show to introduce singer Solomon Burke, who performs Louis' You Can Run, but You Can't Hide. |
| 66 | years ago | 1960 | Michael Stipe, vocalist with R.E.M., is born. |
| 62 | years ago | 1964 | Billboard gives The Beatles' I Want to Hold Your Hand a spotlight review: “This is the hot British group that has struck gold overseas. Side A is a driving rocker with surf-on-the-Thames sound and strong vocal work from the group.” |
| 61 | years ago | 1965 | Fender Guitars is sold to CBS for $13 million. Fender guitars, along with Gibson's, are a favorite brand among rock & rollers. |
| 59 | years ago | 1967 | Benjamin Darvill, one of the Crash Test Dummies, is born. |
| 55 | years ago | 1971 | The film Performance starring Mick Jagger debuts in London two years after it was in the can. He stars as a jaded decadent rock star and at one point shares a bathtub and a bed with actress Anita Pallenberg, the live-in girlfriend of Keith Richards and the former girlfriend of the late Brian Jones. |
| 53 | years ago | 1973 | Rolling Stone magazine has the announcement that the Allman Brothers have named Lamar Williams as the replacement for the late Berry Oakley on bass. |
| 50 | years ago | 1976 | Mal Evans, former roadie and bodyguard of The Beatles, is shot to death by police at his Los Angeles apartment. His girlfriend, Fran Hughes, found him upset and despondent and when friends couldn't get Evans to release the unloaded rifle he was holding, they called police. At one point, Evans supposedly pointed the gun at police officers; they opened fire. He was 40 years old. |
| 47 | years ago | 1979 | With Beatlemania continuing throughout the world, the Star club in Hamburg, Germany, where The Beatles gained a lot of their early experience, reopens. |
| 22 | years ago | 2004 | Singer-songwriter Ray Davies of The Kinks is shot in the leg while chasing thieves who snatched a purse from a woman he was with. He is not seriously injured.
The 59-year-old Davies and the woman were walking near the edge of New Orleans' French Quarter when a passing car stopped and a gunman jumped out and demanded the purse. She handed it to him, and the thief ran back to the car. When Davies ran after him, the thief shot Davies in the leg. The woman was not hurt. Davies was treated and released at a hospital. |
| 19 | years ago | 2007 | C.J. "Superstar" Morgan, a longtime fixture on the New Orleans radio dial, does his last morning show on WQUE FM-93.3 without knowing it. When its over, station owner Clear Channel Communications tells him a syndicated show hosted by multimedia titan Steve Harvey will replace him. |
| 15 | years ago | 2011 | Scotsman Gerry Rafferty, solo artist and member of Stealers Wheel, dies of liver failure at his daughter's home in Stroud, Gloucestershire, England. |
| 13 | years ago | 2013 | Sammy Johns of 1975's Chevy Van fame dies in Gastonia, North Carolina. |
| 8 | years ago | 2018 | The Moody Blues flautist Ray Thomas dies suddenly at the age of 76. He had been diagnosed with inoperable prostate cancer four years earlier. His flute solo in Nights in White Satin lives on. |