| 94 years ago (1931) | “King of Soul” Sam Cooke is born in Clarksdale, Mississippi. |
| 76 years ago (1949) | Journey lead singer Steve Perry is born. |
| 66 years ago (1959) | Alone with an acoustic guitar and tape recorder in his New York City apartment, Buddy Holly makes his last recordings. The songs taped this day include Peggy Sue Got Married, Crying, Waiting, Hoping, That's What They Say, What to Do, Learning the Game and That Makes it Tough. The recordings will be overdubbed posthumously and released by Coral Records. |
| 65 years ago (1960) | Sam Cooke signs with RCA Records. |
| 65 years ago (1960) | Michael Hutchence of INXS is born. He dies in December, 1997. |
| 59 years ago (1966) | Frank Sinatra's daughter Nancy enters the Hot 100 for the second time with what will be her biggest hit, These Boots Are Made for Walkin'. In 14 weeks on the charts, the song will go to #1 for one week next month. |
| 58 years ago (1967) | The Rolling Stones refuse to go on the revolving stage during the finale of the British TV show Sunday Night at the London Palladium. The press saw it as a snub against tradition. |
| 54 years ago (1971) | The Joe Cocker film Mad Dogs and Englishmen debuts at London's Festival Palace. The movie features performances by Cocker, Leon Russell, Rita Coolidge, and others. |
| 51 years ago (1974) | Carly Simon receives a gold record for Hotcakes, her Top Five album highlighted by her duet with husband James Taylor on Mockingbird, also a Top Five hit. |
| 36 years ago (1989) | Gene Simmons of Kiss and former Playboy model Shannon Tweed have a son. |
| 35 years ago (1990) | Guns & Roses guitarist Slash swears numerous times on live television while accepting an American Music Award. Viewers swamp the ABC-TV switchboard with irate calls and the network apologizes. |
| 20 years ago (2005) | Guitarist Eric Clapton, pianist Jools Holland, and The Manic Street Preachers are the headline performers who draw more than 60,000 people to a charity concert in Cardiff, Wales to raise money for the Asian tsunami victims of the previous month. The lineup also includes Charlotte Church, Goldie Lookin’ Chain, Badly Drawn Boy, Feeder, Lemar, Lulu, Craig David, Snow Patrol, and Keane. |
| 17 years ago (2008) | Kentwood, Lousiana native Britney Spears shows up for a deposition in her dispute with ex-husband Kevin Federline over child cutody. She was a no-show in court about a week earlier. |
| 17 years ago (2008) | Ringo Starr walks off the set of the TV show Live with Regis and Kelly rather than shorten the title track of his new album Liverpool 8 to under three minutes. He does the song at full length later this day on Rachael Ray’s show. |