| 85 | years ago | 1941 | But It’s Alright singer J. J. Jackson is born. |
| 79 | years ago | 1947 | Christian rocker Larry Norman, lead singer of People! is born in Corpus Christi, Texas. Their cover of the Zombies’ I Love You peaks at #7 in 1968. |
| 79 | years ago | 1947 | Steve Howe, guitarist with Yes and Asia, is born. |
| 75 | years ago | 1951 | Grand Funk Railroad’s Mel Schacher is born. |
| 64 | years ago | 1962 | Guns 'n' Roses guitarist Izzy Stradlin is born. |
| 63 | years ago | 1963 | Julian Lennon is born. |
| 56 | years ago | 1970 | Craig Honeycutt of Everything is born. |
| 53 | years ago | 1973 | Neil Young's docu-autobiography, Journey through the Past, premieres at the US Film Festival in Dallas. Young is typically ambiguous when describing the film, a bunch of scenes and images throughout his career: “It's a collection of thoughts. Every scene meant something to me -- although with some of them I can't say what.” |
| 52 | years ago | 1974 | Elton John earns another gold record. Bennie and the Jets has John smiling even more as it's a big hit on the R&B charts as well. |
| 51 | years ago | 1975 | Minnie Ripperton receives her only gold record for Lovin' You, her recent #1 record. |
| 50 | years ago | 1976 | Folk singer and anti-Vietnam war activist Phil Ochs hangs himself in Queens, New York. |
| 49 | years ago | 1977 | The Damned becomes the first British punk group to perform in America. They play New York's legendary CBGB's. |
| 43 | years ago | 1983 | Danny Rapp, lead singer of Danny and the Juniors, is found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. He was 41. |
| 35 | years ago | 1991 | A lawsuit, filed against Virgin Records, claims that Paula Abdul did not do all the singing on her hit album, Forever Your Girl. Virgin eventually wins. |
| 32 | years ago | 1994 | Nirvana lead singer and de facto head of the grunge generation, Kurt Cobain, commits suicide by putting a shotgun to his head and pulling the trigger at his Seattle home. He was 27. |
| 30 | years ago | 1996 | Ted Nugent, a staunch hunting advocate, demonstrates archery at the state capitol in Lansing, Michigan. Nugent declares the sport a way to keep kids off alcohol and drugs. |
| 26 | years ago | 2000 | Santana performs at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium with people who collaborated with him on his Supernatural album, including Dave Matthews, Lauryn Hill, and Everlast. |
| 22 | years ago | 2004 | After being fined $495,000 by the FCC for 18 alleged indecency violations, Clear Channel Communications, then the nation's largest radio station chain, drops the show of disc jockey Howard Stern from the six stations that carried it. It had suspended the Stern show the previous February. On his Web site, Howard says, “It is pretty shocking that governmental interference into our rights and free speech takes place in the U.S. It’s hard to reconcile this with the ‘land of the free’ and the ‘home of the brave.’ I'm sure what's next is the removal of ‘dirty pictures’ like the 20th century German exhibit in a New York City Museum and the erotic literature in our libraries; they too will fall into their category of ‘evil’ as well.” The Stern show continues on about 30 other stations, most owned by Viacom's Infinity Broadcasting. |
| 22 | years ago | 2004 | A day after a misdemeanor case against him was dismissed in California, Vince Neil of Mötley Crüe pleads no-contest in Dayton, Nevada to battery on a Moonlite BunnyRanch prostitute. Vince had no comment when the judge asked him if he had anything to say. Andrea “TrixXxie Blue” Terry said Neil choked her and threw her against a wall during their July, 2003 encounter at the Mound House brothel where he stopped after a concert in Reno. |
| 16 | years ago | 2010 | Former Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren dies in Switzerland of an aggressive form of cancer at age 64. He was a seminal figure in the punk rock era, and also ran an infamous clothing shop in London. |
| 13 | years ago | 2013 | Annette Funicello, the dark-haired darling of “The Mickey Mouse Club” in the 1950s who further cemented her status as a pop-culture icon in the `60s by teaming with Frankie Avalon in a popular series of “beach” movies, dies at age 70. Like Cher, most of her Top 40 song hits had labels that said simply, “Annette.” |