17 DECEMBER
In Music History
2010 Don Van Vliet, aka Captain Beefheart, dies in a hospital in Arcata, California, at the age of 69, from complications associated with multiple sclerosis.
2010 Blues singer Robin Rogers dies of liver cancer at age 55 while her new album, Back in the Fire, climbs the blues chart.
2006 Denis Peyton (saxophonist, guitarist for The Dave Clark Five) dies of cancer at age 63.
2001 Garth Brooks and Sandy Mahl divorce after 15 years of marriage. They share three daughters: Taylor, August, and Allie.
1999 Actor/country singer Rex Allen dies at age 78 when he's accidentally run over by his caregiver.
1999 Jazz saxophonist Grover Washington Jr. suffers a fatal heart attack after performing on CBS's Saturday Early Show. He was 56.
1997 MP3.com goes online, allowing independent artists to make their music available for download. It goes public in 1999 but runs into legal problems when posting music by major-label acts. In 2001, it's sold to Vivendi, which sells it in 2003 to CNET, which is just interested in the domain name.
1986 The Doobie Brothers reunite for a benefit concert in Palo Alto, California, which leads to a reunion tour and album.
1986 Wayne Newton wins a $19.2 million suit against NBC News, which had erroneously linked the singer to organized crime.
1982 Blues musician Big Joe Williams dies in Macon, Mississippi, at age 79. Known for hits of the '30s and '40s, such as "Baby, Please Don't Go" and "Crawlin' King Snake."
1972 Craig "DJ Homicide" Bullock (of Sugar Ray) is born in Pasadena, California.
1970 Andy Williams records "Theme From Love Story."
1970 The Beach Boys play a Royal Command Performance for Princess Margaret at London's Royal Albert Hall.
1969 Thanks to play on freeform FM radio stations, Chicago Transit Authority's self-titled debut album goes Gold, eight months after its release. For their next album, the band shortens their name to Chicago.
1969 Tiny Tim marries Miss Vicki Budinger on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. The program receives the second largest ratings of any show up to that time.
Gilbert O'Sullivan Beats The Biz In Landmark Sampling Case
1991A judge rules in favor of the British singer-songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan in his case against the rapper Biz Markie, who sampled Sullivan's song "Alone Again (Naturally)" without permission. The landmark case establishes that samples must be cleared before they are used.
Read more17 DECEMBER
Featured Events
2009 The much-read blog Boing Boing posts the video of "Prisencolinensinainciusol," the 1972 "gibberish rock song written by Italian composer to sound like English." The song quickly gains an American following and is later used in episodes of Fargo and Trust.
1989 The Simpsons debuts on Fox with the episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire." The show quickly attracts big-name guest stars, including many musicians. In Season 3, Michael Jackson, Sting and Aerosmith appear.
1984 Run-DMC's self-titled debut album is certified Gold, making it the first rap album to do so.
1982 The Who play the last show of their farewell tour at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens, which is filmed for an HBO special called Who's Last. They re-form to play Live Aid in 1985, then tour again in 1989.
1977 Elvis Costello gets banned from Saturday Night Live when he abruptly halts his performance of "Less Than Zero" and plays the searing "Radio Radio" instead.More
1971 David Bowie releases his fourth album, Hunky Dory, which opens with the anthemic "Changes."
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