| 79 | years ago | 1947 | Dave Davies, guitar player with the Kinks, is born. |
| 67 | years ago | 1959 | In the words of Don McLean, it is “the day the music died.” Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper are killed when their plane crashes in the Iowa countryside. |
| 59 | years ago | 1967 | Joe Meek, early British pop and rock producer, shoots himself in the head. He had produced hits in the U.K. and his biggest hit was Telstar, which he wrote and was recorded by The Tornadoes. |
| 58 | years ago | 1968 | The Beatles record Paul McCartney's song Lady Madonna at EMI's Abbey Road studios. They accomplish this in just three takes. |
| 57 | years ago | 1969 | John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr hire Allen Klein as The Beatles' business manager. Paul McCartney dissents and the hiring is a contributing factor to the group's breakup. |
| 50 | years ago | 1976 | David Bowie begins his first U.S. tour in over a year in Seattle, Washington. Guitar player Earl Slick replaces Mick Ronson and Bowie shelves the white soul persona for a character he calls the Thin White Duke. |
| 48 | years ago | 1978 | It's the 19th anniversary of Buddy Holly's death. It's also the day on which his birthplace in Lubbock, Texas had been scheduled for demolition by the Lubbock Building Department. The Department had no idea the house had any association with the town's most famous son. However a few days ago, a man bought the place, moved it outside the city limits intact, and fixed it up so his family could move in. He, too, did not know the significance of the house and became the man who save Buddy Holly's birthplace by accident. |
| 48 | years ago | 1978 | Dead Man's Curve, a made-for-TV-movie about surf-rock singers Jan & Dean, airs on ABC-TV. |
| 47 | years ago | 1979 | A sold-out crowd packs into the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, for a concert commemorating the 20th anniversary of the place crash that killed Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper. Wolfman Jack hosts with featured performances by Del Shannon, Jimmy Clanton, and The Drifters. |