| 84 | years ago | 1942 | Rick Huxley, bass guitarist for the Dave Clark Five, is born. |
| 80 | years ago | 1946 | Jimmy Webb, the Grammy Award-winning songwriter and singer who wrote the 1968 hit for Richard Harris MacArthur Park, plus Galveston for Glen Campbell, and Up Up and Away for Fifth Dimension, is born. |
| 79 | years ago | 1947 | The McCoys’ Rick Derringer is born, as is Gregory Leskiw of Guess Who. |
| 69 | years ago | 1957 | American Bandstand goes national on ABC-TV. It started in 1952 as a local hit parade show in Philadelphia. Dick Clark became the host in 1956 and his first guests are the Chordettes. |
| 67 | years ago | 1959 | Former Foo Fighters guitarist Pat Smear is born. |
| 67 | years ago | 1959 | Pete Burns, singer/songwriter for Dead or Alive, is born. He writes a couple of US-charting hits for that English group, You Spin Me Round (Like a Record) in 1985 and Brand New Lover in 1987 |
| 67 | years ago | 1959 | The Isley Brothers record Shout. |
| 62 | years ago | 1964 | The Beach Boys record When I Grow Up To Be A Man. |
| 62 | years ago | 1964 | Beastie Boy M.C.A. is born Adam Yauch in Brooklyn, N.Y. |
| 60 | years ago | 1966 | The Beatles’ album Revolver is released in the U.K. by Capitol. The hit singles off the album include Yellow Submarine, Eleanor Rigby and Got to Get You into My Life. The U.S. version of the album will be released four days later. |
| 60 | years ago | 1966 | John Lennon tells the press that The Beatles are more popular than Jesus Christ, leading many U. S. radio stations to yank Beatles' songs off the air in protest of the statement. |
| 59 | years ago | 1967 | Bobby Gentry releases her only hit, Ode to Billy Joe. |
| 54 | years ago | 1972 | The Moody Blues release Nights in White Satin as a single from their 1968 album Days of Future Passed.. |
| 54 | years ago | 1972 | Aerosmith signs with CBS Records for $125,000 after record company boss Clive Davis saw them play at Max's Kansas City Club in New York. |
| 51 | years ago | 1975 | Kim Fowley forms the first ever all-female heavy rock band, The Runaways. Joan Jett and Lita Ford are among the members. 16-year-old lead singer Cherrie Currie performs in lingerie. |
| 51 | years ago | 1975 | Singer Stevie Wonder signs the recording industry's largest contract to date -- $13 million over a seven-year period. Wonder stays with his original label, Tamla/Motown, while other major Motown artists, including Diana Ross, Gladys Knight, and The Four Tops had left the label over creative differences and financial accounting disputes. |
| 50 | years ago | 1976 | The Beach Boys It's OK TV special airs on NBC. |
| 48 | years ago | 1978 | The Rolling Stones reach #1 on the U. S. singles chart with Miss You, the group’s eighth U. S. #1 single. It makes it to #3 in the U. K. |
| 48 | years ago | 1978 | Former manager and publicist for The Who, Pete Meaden commits suicide. |
| 45 | years ago | 1981 | Olivia Newton-John is awarded a Gold Star on Hollywood Boulevard. |
| 43 | years ago | 1983 | David Crosby of Crosby, Stills & Nash and the Byrds is sentenced to eight years in a Texas jail on cocaine and weapons charges. |
| 37 | years ago | 1989 | Prince is at #1 on the US singles chart with Batdance, taken from the Batman movie. |
| 34 | years ago | 1992 | Jeff Porcaro of Toto dies of a heart attack caused by an allergic reaction to lawn pesticides. He was 38. |
| 30 | years ago | 1996 | It is reported that UK TV music show Top Of The Pops has hit rock bottom with it's smallest audience ever, only two-and-a-half million viewers. In its heyday the show attracted 17 million. |
| 26 | years ago | 2000 | Police are called to Gary Glitter’s West London home when a crowd gathers outside and starts to shout abuse at the former pop star, who was currently back in London to attend to business affairs before heading abroad again. |
| 25 | years ago | 2001 | 'N*Sync starts a three-week run at #1 on the US album chart with Celebrity. |
| 24 | years ago | 2002 | A report by 560 UK undertakers says bereaved families are preferring pop songs to hymns at funerals. Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler is the most requested song, and Queen's Another One Bites The Dust is one of the more unusual. |
| 20 | years ago | 2006 | The three-day International Rockabilly Festival ends in Jackson, Tennessee. Musicians who came to town include Bob Wootton, lead guitarist with Johnny Cash’s longtime backup band, The Tennessee Three. Their album, We Still Miss Someone, got a preliminary nomination for a Grammy. Last year’s Cash biopic, Walk the Line, seemed to generate interest. |
| 18 | years ago | 2008 | Mary J. Blige is sued for $2 million by a company that says she stole some of the music she used on her latest hit album, Growing Pains, as well as on an iPod commercial. The suit says the song, Work That, was created by a producer who worked for the company at the time. |