| 82 | years ago | 1943 | Dickey Betts, guitarist for the Allman Brothers, is born. |
| 76 | years ago | 1949 | Paul Rodgers (Bad Company) is born. |
| 68 | years ago | 1957 | Cy Curnin of The Fixx is born. |
| 68 | years ago | 1957 | The controversy over Elvis's Christmas Album rages on. Disc Jockey Al Priddy of KEX, Portland, Oregon is fired for violating the radio station's ban against playing Presley's rendition of White Christmas. |
| 61 | years ago | 1964 | Capitol's “documentary” album, The Beatles Story, enters the U.S. LP chart at #97. It will make it up to #7 and turn gold later this month. |
| 61 | years ago | 1964 | The Righteous Brothers You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling is released. |
| 58 | years ago | 1967 | A London Appeals Court commutes Brian Jones' nine-month prison stay for possession of cannabis after hearing testimony from three psychiatrists that Jones is “an extremely frightened young man” and could not stand nine months behind bars. |
| 57 | years ago | 1968 | The Rolling Stones convene in a London film studio with John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Eric Clapton, The Who, Jethro Tull, Mitch Mitchell, Marianne Faithful, Mia Farrow, and a bunch of circus performers to film their Rolling Stones Rock & Roll Circus, which is never given a public showing until finally being released in late 1996. |
| 55 | years ago | 1970 | Charges of “larceny by trick” are filed against Little Richard in Miami Beach, Florida by Blacks, Inc., a black advocacy and self-help group which says the veteran rocker pocketed $250 he had solicited for Blacks, Inc. Little Richard claims that all he wants is a receipt and then he'll give them their money. A week later, the charges are dropped. |
| 55 | years ago | 1970 | Steven Stills' Love The One You're With is released. |
| 55 | years ago | 1970 | A Warehouse in New Orleans is the venue for the last concert ever for The Doors with Jim Morrison. |
| 52 | years ago | 1973 | Emerson, Lake, and Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery receives a gold record. |
| 51 | years ago | 1974 | The Rolling Stones begin sessions in Munich for what will become Black and Blue, their 1976 release. The LP is recorded with several guitarists Wayne Perkins, Harvey Mandel, and Rob Wood. The group also announces the departure of guitar player Mick Taylor who replaced Brian Jones five years earlier. When asked about a replacement, Mick Jagger quipped, “No doubt we can find a brilliant six-foot-three blond guitarist who can do his own make-up.” |
| 45 | years ago | 1980 | Devo's Whip it turns gold. The song is misinterpreted to be an ode to masturbation, however the group disagrees. Jerry Casale said, “We were writing a can-do, self-help song. Whip it -- as in whip it into shape.” |
| 28 | years ago | 1997 | John Fogerty plays the first of two nights on Soundstage 5 on the Warner Brothers Lot in Burbank. The shows are taped for an upcoming MTV special. Fogerty plays for 2-1/2 hours each night, playing a heavy dose of Creedence Clearwater Revival songs as well as a number of tracks from his latest LP, Blue Moon Swamp. |