Pick a Day

19 AUGUST

In Music History

2016 Former music mogul Lou Pearlman, creator of 'N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, dies at age 62 while serving a 25-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Texas. In 2008, he was convicted of conspiracy and money laundering related to a massive Ponzi scheme.

2013 The phrase "bro-country" appears for the first time, used by Jody Rosen in a New York magazine story to describe the Florida Georgia Line song "Cruise." Rosen crowns Luke Bryan king of the genre, which he describes as "music by and of the tatted, gym-toned, party-hearty young American white dude."

2008 Dave Matthews Band Saxophonist/arranger LeRoi Moore dies at 46 after being injured in an ATV accident in Charlottesville, Virginia.

2006 Drake makes his professional debut with a 30-minute set at the Kool Haus in Toronto opening for Ice Cube. It earns him $100.

2001 Betty Everett, the first to have a hit with "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)," dies at 61.

1991 At CNE Stadium in Toronto on the last date of the Operation Rock & Roll tour, Judas Priest lead singer Rob Halford's motorcycle entrance goes horribly wrong and he hits a metal beam, breaking his nose and spraining his neck. He completes the show up is taken to a hospital immediately afterward.

1990 Leonard Bernstein conducts his final concert, playing Benjamin Britten's "Four Sea Interludes" and Beethoven's Seventh Symphony with the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood in Massachusetts.

1989 Lou Reed breaks his ankle after a soundcheck in Cleveland, and is forced to cancel the remainder of his tour.

1989 Rapper Lil' Romeo is born Percy Romeo Miller Jr. in New Orleans, Louisiana.

1988 Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" is named the most-played song in the first 100 of the jukebox.

1984 Singer Kirsty MacColl marries the producer Steve Lillywhite. In 1987, she sings on The Pogues Christmas classic "Fairytale Of New York," which Lillywhite produces. They have two children together before divorcing in 1994.

1983 Having been sporadic since it was originally shut down in 1968, "pirate radio" station Radio Caroline makes its comeback on board the ship Ross Revenge in the North Sea's international waters. Six years to the day later, it would be shut down again.

1981 Chris Lowe and Neil Tennant meet at an electronics shop in London and start talking synthesizers. They form Pet Shop Boys, and five years later land their first hit with "West End Girls."

1979 Dorsey Burnette (of Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio) dies of a massive coronary in Canoga Park, California, at age 46.

1977 A year after her group Labelle calls it quits, Patti LaBelle releases her self-titled debut album, introducing one of her signature songs, "You Are My Friend."