| 90 years ago (1934) | Wink Martindale, who would grow up to host TV game shows, and have a 1959 Top Ten hit with his “Deck of Cards” narrative about being a soldier in church with a pack of playing cards, is born. |
| 82 years ago (1942) | Chris Hillman, bass player for the Flying Burrito Brothers and the Byrds, is born. |
| 80 years ago (1944) | Beach Boy drummer Dennis Wilson is born. He dies in 1983. |
| 76 years ago (1948) | “Southside Johnny” Lyon is born. |
| 73 years ago (1951) | Gary Rossington of Lynyrd Skynyrd is born. |
| 68 years ago (1956) | Four Sun Records stars-Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash- record what will later be known as the Million Dollar Quartet. Recordings from the impromptu session won't be released for 25 years. |
| 68 years ago (1956) | Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash hold a recording session at Sun Studios in Memphis. The sessions are later named the Million Dollar Quartet and released. |
| 67 years ago (1957) | Prompted by reports that many radio stations have banned Elvis' Christmas album because of the alleged impropriety of “the Pelvis” singing religious songs, DJ Allen Brooks of CKWS, Kingston, Ontario, plays the album and invites listeners to call in their opinion. Of 800 callers, all but 56 approve of Presley's sacred music. |
| 63 years ago (1961) | Gene Chandler's Duke of Earl is released on Vee Jay Records. It becomes his biggest hit reaching #1 and selling over one million copies worldwide. |
| 60 years ago (1964) | The Beatles fan club in England announces its current membership now totals 65,000. |
| 59 years ago (1965) | Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards is knocked out by an ungrounded microphone during a concert in Sacramento, California. He recovers in seven minutes and the concert continues. |
| 59 years ago (1965) | The Kinks enter the Hot 100 with a song that sets them apart from every other contemporary British band, A Well Respected Man, a tune which marks the beginning of band leader Ray Davies' look at the British way of life. The song peaks at #13 in its 14 weeks on the charts. |
| 59 years ago (1965) | The Knickerbockers enter the Hot 100 with their first of only three hits, Lies, which tops out at #20 in thirteen weeks. |
| 56 years ago (1968) | The New York Times quotes Soviet music critic A. Martinosa saying that The Beatles “have become rich idols of the Philistines.” |
| 55 years ago (1969) | President Richard Nixon, Vice-President Spiro T. Agnew and forty U.S. governors embark on a magical mystery fact-finding mission to discover the causes of the generation gap. They view films of “simulated acid trips” and listen to hours of “anti-establishment rock music.” |
| 54 years ago (1970) | Supersession, an album which came about after an ad hoc studio jam session with Mike Bloomfield, Al Kooper, and Steve Stills, is certified gold. |
| 53 years ago (1971) | The Montreux Casino, site of the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, burns down during a Frank Zappa & the Mothers Of Invention concert, taking $50,000 of his equipment with it. Someone in the audience shot off a flare gun which started the fire. Members of Deep Purple are at the show, being in Montreux to record the album Machine Head. Inspired by the smoke reflecting off Lake Geneva, they write Smoke On The Water. |
| 53 years ago (1971) | Sly and the Family Stone's Family Affair begins a three-week reign in the #1 spot on the pop chart. It is their third and last #1 record and their last to make the Top Ten. |
| 49 years ago (1975) | Alive!, the fourth album by Kiss, goes gold--as has every one of the band's other albums. |
| 44 years ago (1980) | Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones make public their decision not to re-form Led Zeppelin in the wake of the death of drummer John “Bonzo” Bonham. Fifteen years later, Page and Plant get together for a highly successful tour. |
| 37 years ago (1987) | Madonna files for divorce from actor Sean Penn. She later changes her mind but files again in January of 1988. |
| 36 years ago (1988) | Roy Orbison gives his final concert in Akron, Ohio. He will die 2 days later. |
| 35 years ago (1989) | The Supreme Court upholds a ruling that says Prince did not steal the song, U Got The Look from his half-sister. Lorna Nelson claimed the lyrics were similar to ones she had written. |
| 34 years ago (1990) | Madonna appears on Nightline to defend her Justify My Love video, which was banned by MTV. She denies the video's explicit contents were meant to stir up controversy and get her publicity. |
| 33 years ago (1991) | Van Halen performs a free concert in Dallas. Lead singer Sammy Hagar had promised to do the show because he had lost his voice during a concert in Dallas three and a half years earlier. |
| 31 years ago (1993) | Frank Zappa dies of pancreatic cancer at age 52. |