17 APRIL
In Music History
1974 Vinnie Taylor (lead guitarist for Sha Na Na) dies of an accidental heroin overdose at age 24.
1974 Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham (of Spice Girls) is born Victoria Adams in Harlow, Essex, England.
1971 Three Dog Night's "Joy To The World" reaches #1, where it stays for six weeks.
1970 Rapper Redman is born Reginald Noble in Newark, New Jersey.
1970 Paul McCartney releases his first solo album, McCartney. Unlike the grand Beatles' productions, this one is stripped-down, with Paul playing all the instruments himself.
1970 Johnny Cash plays for President Richard Nixon at the White House, performing his song "What Is Truth." Nixon requested a song called "Welfare Cadillac," which Cash politely declines to play.
1969 The first solo concert by The Band is held in San Francisco, California.
1964 Them (with Van Morrison) make their first concert appearance, at Belfast's Maritime Hotel.
1964 Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan is born James Herbert Keenan in Ravenna, Ohio.
1961 The Cleftones release their R&B version of "Heart and Soul."
1960 Gene Vincent is seriously injured in a Wiltshire, England, car crash in which Eddie Cochran dies.
1955 Pete Shelley (Buzzcocks singer/guitarist) is born in Leigh, Lancashire, England.
1954 Songwriter and musician Michael Sembello is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1953 Harry Belafonte makes his film debut in Bright Road, also starring Dorothy Dandridge. He soon becomes a star of stage and screen.
1948 "Miami Vice" composer Jan Hammer is born in Prague.
"Planet Rock" Introduces Electro And 808s To Hip-Hop
1982Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force release "Planet Rock," the first hip-hop hit with electronic elements and a rhythm powered by a Roland TR-808 drum machine. It's just the third rap song to reach the Hot 100, following "Rapper's Delight" by the Sugarhill Gang and "The Breaks" by Kurtis Blow.
Read more17 APRIL
Featured Events
2008 With Spirit, Leona Lewis becomes the first British woman to go straight to the top of the Billboard 200 album chart with a debut album.
2006 A big-budget Coke commercial with a new song by Jack White called "Love Is The Truth" hits YouTube, then quickly goes away.More
1998 Linda McCartney, Paul McCartney's wife and Wings bandmate, dies at age 56 after a three-year battle with breast cancer.More
1983 Felix Pappalardi (bassist, vocalist for Mountain), age 43, is shot and killed by his wife, Gail, in their East Side Manhattan apartment. Gail claims it was an accident and the charge of second-degree murder is lessened to criminally negligent homicide, which lands her a brief stint in prison.
1983 Joe Strummer of The Clash runs the London Marathon, finishing with a time of 4 hours 13 minutes. He claims that his training included 10 pints of beer the night before.
1982 Denison University freshman Laura Carter is killed when a bullet from a gunfight a block away strikes her in the chest while she is riding in a car with her parents. Christopher Cross, who is dating her best friend, writes "Think Of Laura" in her honor.
1971 Each of the four ex-Beatles has a solo single on the UK chart: John Lennon - "Power to the People" Paul McCartney - "Another Day" Ringo Starr - "It Don't Come Easy" George Harrison - "My Sweet Lord"
1967 Liz Phair is born in New Haven, Connecticut; she is raised by her adoptive parents in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Winnetka, Illinois. She becomes a '90s indie-rock icon with her debut album, Exile In Guyville, a feminist treatment of the Rolling Stones' Exile On Main St.More
1960 "Summertime Blues" singer Eddie Cochran dies in England when the taxi he is riding in crashes. He is just 21.
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