20 DECEMBER
In Music History
1966 Chris Robinson (lead singer for The Black Crowes) is born in Marietta, Georgia. His dad, Stanley "Stan" Robinson, had a 1959 hit with "Boom-A-Dip-Dip."
1965 Wilson Pickett records "634-5789" with Booker T. & the MG's, sans Booker (with Isaac Hayes filling in for him on piano).
1962 The Osmond Brothers (later The Osmonds), minus 5-year-old Donny, make their first appearance on the Andy Williams Show.
1960 Elvis Presley's movie Flaming Star opens.
1959 Jackie Fox is born Jacqueline Fuchs in California. She gives up a promising career in mathematics when she joins The Runaways as bass player at the age of 15, rather than taking early entry into UCLA. After leaving the band, she returns to her studies, graduating from UCLA and then Harvard - where she is a classmate of Barack Obama - and goes on to work as an entertainment lawyer.
1947 Little Stevie Wright (lead singer for The Easybeats) is born in Leeds, England, but would be raised in Australia (Melbourne and Sydney).
1945 Peter Criss is born George Peter John Criscuola in Brooklyn, New York. He will become the drummer for Kiss and write their song "Beth."
1944 Bobby Colomby (drummer for Blood, Sweat & Tears) is born in New York.
1939 Soul singer Kim Weston is born Agatha Nathalia Weston in Detroit, Michigan. She signs with Motown Records in 1961.
1898 Actress and singer Irene Dunne is born in Louisville, Kentucky. Known for her Academy Award-nominated performances in the '30s and '40s, including Cimarron, Theodora Goes Wild, The Awful Truth, Love Affair and I Remember Mama.
1871 Composer/conductor Henry Kimball Hadley is born in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Bobby Darin Dies At Age 37
1973Bobby Darin dies at age 37 after surgery to repair his ailing heart.
Read more20 DECEMBER
Featured Events
2006 Nearly 40 years after it was recorded, Procol Harum organist Matthew Fisher is awarded 40% of the songwriting credit for "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" by a London court. The judgment is reduced on appeal in 2008.
1986 Thanks to its use in the movie of the same name, Ben E. King's "Stand By Me," originally released in 1961, reaches #9 in the US.
1980 "(Just Like) Starting Over" gives John Lennon his first #1 single as a solo artist in the UK, 12 days after his murder.
1975 Joe Walsh replaces Bernie Leadon in the Eagles. Walsh was previously a member of the James Gang.
1948 Alan Parsons (of The Alan Parsons Project) is born in London, England. He starts his music career as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road Studios, where he engineers Paul McCartney's Wild Life and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon.
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