25 APRIL
In Music History
1985 Exodus release their first studio album, Bonded By Blood.
1985 The musical Big River, based on Mark Twain's work and featuring a score by Roger Miller, opens on Broadway. Miller would go on to win a Tony Award for the music.
1981 Denny Laine leaves the trio Wings, essentially leaving Paul McCartney a solo act once more.
1977 Christian singer-songwriter Matthew West is born in Downers Grove, Illinois.
1977 Elvis Presley makes his last-ever recordings at a session after a show in Saginaw, Michigan.
1975 A forebear to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video, the Alice Cooper horror/music special Alice Cooper: The Nightmare (featuring Vincent Price) airs on ABC.
1975 Israeli singer Mike Brant, 28, commits suicide by leaping from an apartment window in Paris.
1975 The original New York Dolls break up after Jerry Nolan and Johnny Thunders leave the band in the middle of a tour in Florida. They carry on with replacements into 1976, but disband that year, returning again in 2004.
1974 Pamela Courson, who was Jim Morrison's girlfriend and the one who found him dead in a bathtub, dies of a heroin overdose at age 27.
1974 The streaking fad hits its peak as Rolling Stone reports that Yes and Gregg Allman concerts have been interrupted by naked people running around the venues.
1973 Sweet's "Little Willy" is certified Gold.
1970 In Nashville, James Brown records "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine." It's the first recording with his new band, which he hired in March when his previous group complained about how they were treated. The bass player in this new band is Bootsy Collins.
1965 Jane's Addiction bass player Eric Avery is born in Los Angeles.
1964 Synthpop singer Andy Bell (of Erasure) is born in Dogsthorpe, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England.
1961 Performing at Bloch Arena in Hawaii, Elvis Presley makes his last stage appearance for nearly eight years.
Michael Bolton Found Guilty Of Ripping Off The Isley Brothers
1994A jury rules that Michael Bolton's 1991 hit "Love Is a Wonderful Thing" plagiarizes The Isley Brothers 1966 song of the same name and awards $5.4 million in damages, the largest ever in a music plagiarism case.
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Featured Events
2006 Bruce Springsteen releases We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, a collection of songs popularized by Pete Seeger. The album brings Seeger into the spotlight, drawing attention to his work as a musicologist and scion of folk music. "I've managed to survive all these years by keeping a low profile," Seeger says. "Now my cover's blown."
2002 30-year-old Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes (of TLC) dies in a car accident in La Ceiba, Honduras, after swerving to avoid an oncoming vehicle and losing control. The only passenger fatally injured, she's thrown from the car and dies instantly.
1999 It's Joe DiMaggio Day at Yankee Stadium, where Paul Simon performs "Mrs. Robinson," which contains the classic line, "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?"
1992 "Jump" by Kris Kross hits #1 in the US, where it stays for eight weeks. Kris Kross is the rap duo of Chris Kelly and Chris Smith, who are both 13. The track is produced by Jermaine Dupri, who goes on to supply beats for another youngster: Lil Bow Wow.
1987 U2's fifth album, The Joshua Tree, hits #1 in America, giving the band their rock star bona fides in that country (they've been huge in their native Ireland for years). It holds the top spot for an impressive nine weeks, finally dethroned by Whitney Houston's Whitney.
1970 The Jackson 5 bump The Beatles ("Let It Be") off the top spot in America with "ABC."
1917 Jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald is born in Newport News, Virginia.
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