Pick a Day

21 APRIL

In Music History

1990 The International Ska Festival & Earth Day Celebration goes down at the Greek Theatre in San Francisco, with performances by The International Beat, The Uptones, and Bad Manners. With 10,000 attending, it's an early indicator that ska is finding an audience in America.

1981 Weird Al Yankovic (along with his drummer, Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz) makes his TV debut, playing the Queen parody "Another One Rides The Bus" on Tom Snyder's The Tomorrow Show.

1979 Amii Stewart's "Knock On Wood" hits #1 in America. The song was originally recorded by Eddie Floyd in 1966.

1978 31-year-old Fairport Convention lead singer Sandy Denny dies of a cerebral hemorrhage after four days in a coma.

1977 ABC airs Frank Sinatra's TV special Frank Sinatra And Friends, featuring guest stars Natalie Cole and John Denver.

1977 Elvis Presley begins his last concert tour in Greensboro, North Carolina.

1977 Having spent a full decade as a draft exile in Canada, singer-songwriter Jesse Winchester returns to the US.

1976 A night after George Harrison joins Monty Python during their performance of "The Lumberjack Song" at a New York show, Harry Nilsson tries it. While Harrison blended in as a member of the chorus (dressed as a Mountie), Nilsson wears dark glasses and makes a spectacle. When he goes to the front of the stage to shake hands with audience members, he falls into the crowd and breaks his arm.

1973 Powered by a gnarly stage show and the tracks "No More Mr. Nice Guy" and "Elected," Alice Cooper's album Billion Dollar Babies hits #1 in America (it hits the top spot in the UK three days later).

1973 Tony Orlando and Dawn's "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree" hits #1 in the US. The song is based on a fictional newspaper story about a man returning from jail who asks his wife to tie a yellow handkerchief on the landmark oak tree in town if she still loves him.

1970 Elton John makes his stage debut as a solo act when he opens for T. Rex, Spooky Tooth, and Jackie Lomax at the Roundhouse in London.

1970 Chicago blues guitarist Earl Hooker dies of tuberculosis at age 41.

1969 Mick Jagger sends a letter to Andy Warhol, who has agreed to design the artwork for the Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers. Jagger writes: "In my short sweet experience, the more complicated the format of the album... the more f--ked up the reproduction and agonising delays." Warhol eventually delivers a design with a working zipper, which becomes one of the most memorable album covers ever made, but is very difficult to mass produce.

1962 Elvis Presley's "Good Luck Charm" hits #1.

1959 Robert Smith of The Cure is born in Blackpool, Lancashire, UK.