| 64 | years ago | 1961 | Motown's Tamla Records releases the Marvelettes first single, Please Mr. Postman. The song will be a million seller and the groups biggest hit. |
| 62 | years ago | 1963 | Peter, Paul & Mary perform Blowin' In The Wind before Civil Rights marchers who had gathered in Washington to hear Martin Luther King Jr. speak. |
| 61 | years ago | 1964 | The Beatles play the first of two concerts at New York's Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. 15,000 attend each performance and show their affection by tossing jellybeans, the bands favorite candy, onto the stage. The fans scream so loud, it's almost impossible to hear the music. It is also after this show that The Beatles meet Bob Dylan, who reportedly introduces them to marijuana in a hotel. |
| 60 | years ago | 1965 | The Rolling Stones announce that Allen Klein, whom they met three days ago, will co-manage the group along with Andrew Long Oldham. At the same time, they sign a five-year recording deal with Decca Records. |
| 60 | years ago | 1965 | The Beach Boys' California Girls peaks at #3 on the chart. |
| 60 | years ago | 1965 | A Forest Hills, New York audience boos Bob Dylan for plugging in. |
| 58 | years ago | 1967 | The Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company play at the wake of a Hell's Angels member who was struck by a car in San Francisco. |
| 57 | years ago | 1968 | The Doors Hello, I Love You sells a million copies. The song, which does not have the sinister qualities of the first million seller, Light My Fire, marks the groups move into more of a mainstream rock sound. |
| 56 | years ago | 1969 | Paul and Linda McCartney become parents to daughter Mary. |
| 54 | years ago | 1971 | James Brown's tenth #1 R&B song, Make it Funky, enters the R&B charts. It will reach #22 on the pop chart next month. |
| 54 | years ago | 1971 | The Five Man Electrical Band's Signs peaks at #3 on the pop singles chart. |
| 53 | years ago | 1972 | Procol Harem has a gold LP, Live in Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. The hit single from it is Conquistador. |
| 53 | years ago | 1972 | David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars make their debut at Carnegie Hall in New York. Bowie gives the performance while he was sick with the flu. |
| 52 | years ago | 1973 | Deep Purple's Smoke On The Water goes gold. |
| 52 | years ago | 1973 | Bobby “Boris” Pickett's novelty tune, Monster Mash makes the charts for the third time. It was originally released and went to #1 in 1962. It hit the charts again in 1970, and remains a perennial Halloween favorite. |
| 49 | years ago | 1976 | Peter Frampton's Baby, I Love Your Way peaks at #12 on the pop singles chart. |
| 47 | years ago | 1978 | Devo releases their Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo LP. It features a cover of the Rolling Stones classic (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction. |
| 46 | years ago | 1979 | What a year it has been for Neil Young. He has two gold albums: Decade, an earlier triple album best-of set, and Rust Never Sleeps. |
| 43 | years ago | 1982 | Marshall Crenshaw's Someday Someway peaks at #36 on the pop singles chart. |
| 43 | years ago | 1982 | Elvis Costello's Imperial Bedroom enters the LP charts. |
| 43 | years ago | 1982 | Men At Work's Business As Usual enters the album charts. The LP would eventually shoot up to #1, a position it would hold for 15 weeks! It also featured two #1 hits, Who Can It Be Now? and Down Under. |
| 39 | years ago | 1986 | Tina Turner is awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. |
| 39 | years ago | 1986 | Stevie Nicks, Mick Fleetwood, and Neil Young perform in a show that's billed as “Get Tough On Toxics” in Long Beach, California. The show also features all of The Eagles except Glenn Frey, who is in the hospital with an intestinal disorder. |
| 32 | years ago | 1993 | Billy Joel's River Of Dreams enters the Billboard LP chart at #1, where it stays for three weeks. |
| 32 | years ago | 1993 | James Taylor's (Live) LP enters the chart. |
| 30 | years ago | 1995 | Oingo Boingo announce they will break up following a series of L.A. area Halloween shows. Band leader Danny Elfman goes on to much success in scoring of films. |
| 15 | years ago | 2010 | New Orleans musicians Kermit Ruffins, Lloyd Price, and James Andrews are among the performers at a preview concert for the HBO series Treme soundtrack CD at the House of Blues in New Orleans. Others include John Boutte, Jon Cleary, Irma Thomas, Coco Robicheaux, Paul Sanchez, Doreen Ketchens, Rebirth Brass Band, and Guardians of the Flame Mardi Gras Indians. |
| 14 | years ago | 2011 | Beyonce reveals her baby bump after a performance of Love on Top at the MTV Video Music Awards. Thanks to future dad Jay-Z, she's four months pregnant at age 28. Twitter goes crazy with a record 8,868 tweets per second. 12.4 million watch the show, the most since 1993 when Nielsen and MTV started keeping track. New Orleans rapper Lil Wayne closes out the show with his top 10 hit How to Love, which with Weezy's crooning vocal, sounds as much R&B as hip-hop, and he performs John, remixed over Black Sabbath's rock tune Iron Man. |