| 70 | years ago | 1955 | Drifters singer Clyde McPhatter's first solo hit, Seven Days, enters the R&B chart. It will peak at #3 and go on to #44 on the pop chart next year. |
| 57 | years ago | 1968 | The Doors' Touch Me is released. |
| 57 | years ago | 1968 | The Miami Festival, the first big rock festival held on the east coast, gets under way in Hallendale, Florida. Tickets go for six and seven dollars and 100,000 people show-up at the three day event. Those appearing include Jose Feliciano, Procul Harem, Three Dog Night, Chuck Berry, Fleetwood Mac, Marvin Gaye, Joni Mitchell, The Turtles, and Canned Heat. |
| 54 | years ago | 1971 | Keith Moon emcees a concert for one of his favorite acts, Fifties revivalists Sha Na Na at New York's famed Carnegie Hall. |
| 50 | years ago | 1975 | Ted Nugent, known for gun-toting hunting epics in his native Michigan, ends up looking at the wrong end of the barrel at a show in Spokane, Washington. 25-year-old David Gelfer points a .44 magnum at Nugent and is then brought down to the ground by members of the audience and security guards. Gelfer is charged with “intimidating with a weapon.” |
| 46 | years ago | 1979 | The Who, The Pretenders, The Specials, and others perform at the third of four shows for the people of Kampuchea. |
| 44 | years ago | 1981 | Warner/Elektra/Asylum follows the lead set by RCA last month and raises its list price for 45-RPM singles to $1.99. |
| 42 | years ago | 1983 | Beach Boy Dennis Wilson drowns in Marina Del Rey. He was 39. |
| 34 | years ago | 1991 | Nine fans are crushed to death at a charity basketball game in New York that was to feature Heavy D., Boys II Men, and Run-D.M.C. Two thousand people tried to cram into a gym that was built for a few hundred. |
| 33 | years ago | 1992 | Paul Simon and wife Edie Brickell have a baby, Adrian Edward Simon. |
| 27 | years ago | 1998 | Singer Ronnie Hammond of the Atlanta Rhythm Section is shot in the chest by a Macon police after allegedly lunging at an officer with a broken guitar handle and a hammer. Police were responding to reports that the singer was trying to commit suicide. Hammond makes a full recovery. This was the second incident with the police for Hammond. On December 9, 1998, police responded to an earlier suicide attempt. |
| 20 | years ago | 2005 | Gary Glitter’s lawyer says his client paid $4,000 to the families of Vietnamese girls he is accused of sexually abusing in exchange for their cooperation. Glitter was jailed in Vietnam on November 19. The families of each of the two girls, ages 11 and 12, agreed to write letters to the court requesting the case be dropped. |
| 20 | years ago | 2005 | Barry Cowsill, a member of the popular 1960s singing family The Cowsills, which was the inspiration for TV’s The Partridge Family, is found dead on a New Orleans wharf nearly four months after he disappeared when Hurricane Katrina flooded the city. He was 51. Cowsill's body is recovered from the Chartres Street Wharf and identified with dental records 6 days later according to Dr. Louis Cataldie, head of the state hurricane morgue in Carville, Louisiana. The coroner had not determined the cause of death but believed it was related to the devastating storm, which struck the city Aug. 29. Cowsill, who lived on and off in New Orleans, had not been heard from since he left phone messages for his sister Sept. 1. |
| 19 | years ago | 2006 | Heather Mills McCratney calls police and reports the theft of paintings--including a Renoir and a Picasso--from the country estate she had shared with estranged husband Paul. But the police find that ther's been no theft. Paul took the paintings and reprogrammed the alarm codes, informing Heather of his action by text message. Police say it's a civil matter. |
| 15 | years ago | 2010 | Usher performs, mostly shirtless, at the New Orleans Arena. |
| 10 | years ago | 2015 | Heavy metal icon and Motörhead frontman Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister dies from a very aggressive form of cancer, just two days after learning he has the disease. He was 70. |