| 86 | years ago | 1939 | Ruby Nash Curtis of Ruby and the Romantics is born. |
| 82 | years ago | 1943 | R & B singer Jimmy Hayes of The Persuasions is born. |
| 81 | years ago | 1944 | Booker T. Jones of Booker T. and the M. G.’s is born. |
| 80 | years ago | 1945 | Neil Young, guitarist and vocalist for Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Buffalo Springfield, is born. |
| 70 | years ago | 1955 | Billboard publishes the results of its annual disc jockey poll. The most played R&B single is Johnny Ace's Pledging My Love, most promising artist is Chuck Berry, and the favorite R&B artist is Fats Domino. In the pop category, rock and roll is barely present. Elvis Presley is voted the most promising country & western artist. |
| 68 | years ago | 1957 | Jamboree, the first movie starring Jerry Lee Lewis, previews in Hollywood. Among those featured in the flick are Fats Domino (with whom Lewis shares top billing), Carl Perkins, Frankie Avalon, Slim Whitman, and Connie Francis. |
| 59 | years ago | 1966 | Donovan's Mellow Yellow is released. |
| 58 | years ago | 1967 | Jerry Lee Lewis records To Make Love Sweeter for You. It will be his second country #1 since Great Balls of Fire almost ten years ago. |
| 55 | years ago | 1970 | The Doors make their last appearance in New Orleans. Ray Manzarek, Robbie Krieger, and John Densmore later recall watching Jim Morrison lose “all his energy” as the show comes to a close. |
| 46 | years ago | 1979 | Jefferson Starship singer Marty Balin's rock opera Rock Justice opens a four-day run at San Francisco's Old Waldorf night club. Balin stars in and co-directs the musical, about a rock star who dreams he's on trial for not having a hit record. |
| 41 | years ago | 1984 | Madonna releases the Like A Virgin LP. |
| 38 | years ago | 1987 | Sly Stone shows up over an hour late for his “comeback” concert in Los Angeles. When he gets there he is arrested for non-payment of child support. |
| 35 | years ago | 1990 | Rolling Stone Ron Wood is injured when he is struck by a car near London. |
| 26 | years ago | 1999 | British glam-rocker Gary Glitter is sentenced to four months in a UK jail after pleading guilty to charges of child pornography. In a separate trial hours earlier, Glitter is acquitted of sexually assaulting an underaged fan almost two decades before. |
| 17 | years ago | 2008 | Jimi Hendix Experience driummer Mitch Mitchell is found dead in his Portland hotel room. He had peformed a few days earlier with the Experience Hendrix tour. Portland was the last stop on the West Coast. |
| 9 | years ago | 2016 | Leon Russell, the longhaired, scratchy-voiced pianist, guitarist, songwriter and bandleader who moved from playing countless recording sessions to making hits on his own, dies in his sleep in Nashville, Tenn. He was 74. |