| 95 | years ago | 1931 | Ted Lewis' Just A Gigolo hits #1 on the pop singles chart. “Diamond” David Lee Roth hits with the same song in 1985. New Orleans' own trumpeter and singer Louis Prima wrote it. |
| 92 | years ago | 1934 | Keyboardist Merl Saunders, who played on albums by The Grateful Dead and Creedence Clearwater Revival's Tom Fogarty, among others, is born. |
| 68 | years ago | 1958 | The Iranian government bans rock & roll on the grounds that it's against the concepts of Islam and also a hazard to health. CBS Newsman Walter Cronkite reports that Iranian doctors blame the “extreme gyrations” of rock & roll dances for hip injuries. |
| 65 | years ago | 1961 | The Platters file suit against Mercury Records for breach of contract after the record company's refusal to accept recordings on which Tony Williams does not sing lead. The contract doesn't specify who must sing lead, according to the group. |
| 60 | years ago | 1966 | Sounds of Silence earns Simon & Garfunkel their first gold record. It hit #1 on the pop charts a month and a half earlier. |
| 60 | years ago | 1966 | Ricky Wolking of The Nixons is born. |
| 59 | years ago | 1967 | Aretha Franklin records Respect at New York's Atlantic Studio. |
| 58 | years ago | 1968 | Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention announce they'll do a documentary film on themselves called Uncle Meat. They also say they'll make a monster movie in Japan. |
| 56 | years ago | 1970 | The Recording Industry Association of America is “Mounting Total War Against Tape Pirating of Prerecorded Music.” That's the headline in this week's Billboard magazine. |
| 56 | years ago | 1970 | The Who tape a concert at Leeds University in Leeds, England for their forthcoming album. The Who do My Generation, Substitute, Magic Bus, Summertime Blues, and Shakin' all Over. The concert tape becomes the 1970 album, Live at Leeds. |
| 54 | years ago | 1972 | John Lennon and Yoko Ono begin a week as co-hosts of The Mike Douglas Show, a TV talk show for housewives. |
| 54 | years ago | 1972 | Grease opens off-Broadway, where it will run for the next decade. Original cast members include Barry Bostwick and Adrienne Barbeau. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John make it a hit movie six years later. |
| 54 | years ago | 1972 | Matchbox Twenty's Rob Thomas is born, as is Kevin Baldes of Lit. |
| 53 | years ago | 1973 | David Bowie collapses from exhaustion at the end of his Valentines Day Show at New York's Radio City Music Hall. |
| 52 | years ago | 1974 | Rolling Stone reports David Bowie declined a Gay Liberation group request to compose the “world's first Gay National Anthem.” |
| 52 | years ago | 1974 | Carole King, Ringo Starr, Neil Young, Warren Beatty, and Jack Nicholson turn out for the final performance of the Bob Dylan/The Band concert tour in Los Angeles. 20 cities had seen 38 previous performances. Ringo declares, “It was bloody fantastic. The best concert I've ever been to.” |
| 50 | years ago | 1976 | ELO's single Evil Woman peaks at #10 on the pop chart. The album it was from, Face The Music, also made the Top 10, peaking at #8 . |
| 50 | years ago | 1976 | Squeeze Box, the single from The Who's Who By Numbers, peaks at #16 on the chart. |
| 49 | years ago | 1977 | The B-52's perform for the first time at a party in Athens, Georgia. |
| 47 | years ago | 1979 | Beatles guitarist George Harrison releases his tenth and self-titled album. It spends 18 weeks on the charts at peaks at #1. |
| 46 | years ago | 1980 | Lou Reed marries Sylvia Morales in New York City's Greenwich Village. |
| 45 | years ago | 1981 | Steely Dan's Hey 19, from the Gaucho album, peaks at #10 on the chart. |
| 45 | years ago | 1981 | Queen's Flash Theme peaks at #42 on the pop chart. It was from the 1980 film, Flash Gordon. |
| 45 | years ago | 1981 | Billy Idol leaves Generation X to go solo. |
| 42 | years ago | 1984 | Elton John marries female studio engineer Renate Blauel. They divorced four years later when Elton entered rehabilitation for drugs, alcohol, and bulimia. He then took a male lover. |
| 40 | years ago | 1986 | Frank Zappa plays crime boss Mr. Frankie on an episode of Miami Vice. |
| 39 | years ago | 1987 | Bon Jovi hits #1 with their tune Livin' On A Prayer from the album Slippery When Wet. It spent eight weeks at #1 on the charts and sold over nine million copies. |
| 39 | years ago | 1987 | Stay the Night, a single by Cars' bassist Benjamin Orr, peaks at #24 on this date. |
| 36 | years ago | 1990 | The Rolling Stones pack 50,000 fans into Tokyo's Korakuen Dome for the first of ten shows there. Fans paid 10,000 yen ($70) each to see the Stones on their first ever Japanese tour. |
| 32 | years ago | 1994 | The Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia weds Deborah Koons at age 5. |
| 30 | years ago | 1996 | The Artist Formerly Known as Prince marries backup singer Mayte Garcia. |
| 27 | years ago | 1999 | Elton John plays himself in animated form for a Valentine's Day episode of The Simpsons. |
| 16 | years ago | 2010 | The Vatican had previously denounced rock music as the devil’s work , but today the Vatican newspaper publishes what it calls “a semiserious guide” to the top ten rock and pop albums of all time. The list includes The Beatles’ Revolver, which was given the top slot, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of The Moon, Oasis’ 1995 bestseller (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? and Michael Jackson’s blockbuster Thriller. Other records that make the top ten include U2’s Achtung Baby, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly, Carlos Santana’s Supernatural, Paul Simon’s Graceland and David Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name. |