| 76 | years ago | 1950 | Peter Frampton, guitarist with Humble Pie, is born. |
| 75 | years ago | 1951 | Paul Carrack, vocalist with Ace, Squeeze, and Mike & the Mechanics, is born. |
| 67 | years ago | 1959 | Alan Freed premieres what will be his last rock & roll movie, Go Johnny Go. Music in the flick includes performances by the Flamingos, Cadillacs, Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran, Harvey Fuqua, Ritchie Valens, and Jackie Wilson. |
| 60 | years ago | 1966 | Wild Thing by British band the Troggs is released in the U.S. on both the Atco and Fontana labels. The song will go to #1 in June and be covered by Jimi Hendrix and other artists. |
| 57 | years ago | 1969 | The Who give their first complete live performance of the rock opera Tommy at a show in Dolton, England. |
| 57 | years ago | 1969 | John Lennon changes his name from John Winston Lennon to John Ono Lennon during a short ceremony on the roof of the Apple Records building in London. |
| 50 | years ago | 1976 | Bob Dylan and his Rolling Thunder Revue tape a show at the Belleview Biltmore Hotel in Clearwater, Florida. Midnight Special was auctioned off to NBC. However, Dylan scraps the footage and goes with a later show taped in Fort Collins, Colorado called Hard Rain. |
| 50 | years ago | 1976 | Johnnie Taylor's Disco Lady becomes the first single ever to sell over 2 million copies. |
| 48 | years ago | 1978 | John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd make their first ever appearance as The Blues Brothers on Saturday Night Live, The duo opened the show with Hey Bartender with an intro by Paul Schaffer acting as Don Kirschner. |
| 48 | years ago | 1978 | Bob Marley and the Wailers perform at the One Love Peace Concert in Jamaica. It was Marley's first public appearance in Jamaica since being wounded in an assassination attempt a year and a half earlier. |
| 48 | years ago | 1978 | Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street is released. |
| 47 | years ago | 1979 | As part of his sentence for his 1977 Canadian drug arrest, Rolling Stone Keith Richards performs a benefit concert in Oshawa for the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. Richards' band, making its debut, is the New Barbarians. It's made up of Richards, Rolling Stone guitarist Ron Wood, bass player Stanley Clarke, Ian McLagan on keyboards, and drummer Ziggy Modeliste. The group leaves shortly on a big tour of U.S., but never records. |
| 47 | years ago | 1979 | Silverchair’s Daniel Johns is born. |
| 46 | years ago | 1980 | The J. Geils Band makes its comeback with Love Stinks, its second album on its new label, EMI America. The LP goes to #18 and turns gold. |
| 45 | years ago | 1981 | After being released from St. Paul's Hospital in Minnesota on April 17, following a month-long treatment for bleeding ulcers, Eric Clapton is put back in the hospital. This time, it's in Seattle, Washington when Clapton suffers bruised ribs and a lacerated shin in a car accident. |