| 85 | years ago | 1941 | Singer-songwriter Bob Dylan is born. |
| 63 | years ago | 1963 | Elmore James suffers a fatal heart attack in Chicago at age 45. He was born in Chicago and was probably the most influential electric blues guitarist of all time. |
| 55 | years ago | 1971 | Bob Dylan turns 30, and even the Peanuts comic strip mentions it. Dylan celebrates at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall. |
| 51 | years ago | 1975 | For the second show in a row, the Beach Boys, on tour with Chicago, literally have the place jumping. The second level at the Oakland Coliseum is noticeable shaking in footage taken by a local news crew; the concert the day before at Anaheim Stadium caused the mezzanine to deflect as much as eighteen inches. |
| 50 | years ago | 1976 | Arista Records president Clive Davis pleads guilty in New York to a charge of failing to report $8,800 of income in 1972. The money was given to him for a non-business vacation by CBS Records during his tenure as president there. He is fined $10,000 in September for the offense. |
| 48 | years ago | 1978 | It is believed “Heavy Metal” is history. However, copies of Black Sabbath's Paranoid are still spun at wall-shattering volume in basements everywhere. Van Halen, a young bar band from Pasadena, California scores its first time out with Van Halen. The album goes gold on this date. |
| 47 | years ago | 1979 | Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford, and Tony Banks of Genesis surprise their fans by showing up in person at the box office of Los Angeles club The Roxy to sell tickets to their benefit for local hospitals the next night. |
| 44 | years ago | 1982 | A benefit concert for the Vietnam Veterans Project is held in San Francisco's Moscone Center, where the Jefferson Starship, Grateful Dead, Boz Scaggs, and Country Joe McDonald appear. They raise about $175,000. |
| 35 | years ago | 1991 | It’s Bob Dylan's 50th birthday, and the music world remembers with birthday wishes in the media. |
| 35 | years ago | 1991 | Gene Clark of the Byrds dies of natural causes. He was 46 years old. |
| 27 | years ago | 1999 | David Bowie broadcasts a recording session live over the Internet for his song, What's Really Happening. He co-wrote the song with Alex Grant, who was one of 80,000 contestants to submit lyrics for the opportunity of sharing writing credit with the Thin White Duke in a David Bowie songwriting contest. The cybercast was the first public use of a 360-degree full-view camera. |
| 20 | years ago | 2006 | Sir Elton John accepts $188,000 in libel damages from The Daily Mail newspaper over allegations that he had asks guests not to approach him at his annual Tie and Tiara charity ball. The Sunday Times, which had reprinted the Mail article, agreed to a confidential settlement several months earlier. |
| 20 | years ago | 2006 | The Rolling Stones postpone 15 dates of their European “A Bigger Bang” tour while Keith Richards recovers from a head injury suffered in Fiji last month. |
| 20 | years ago | 2006 | Prince’s second wife, Manuela Testolini Nelson, files for divorce |
| 18 | years ago | 2008 | Sir Paul McCartney gets an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Yale University. A band plays Hey Jude as he walks on stage to accept it. |