26 APRIL
In Music History
1978 Ringo Starr's TV special Ringo airs on NBC.
1976 Jose Pasillas (drummer for Incubus) is born in Calabasas, California.
1975 John Lennon's cover of "Stand By Me" reaches #20 in the US.
1975 B.J. Thomas' "(Hey Won't You Play) Another Somebody Done Somebody Wrong Song" goes to #1 in America.
1975 Heavy metal drummer Nathan "Joey" Jordison (Slipknot) is born in Des Moines, Iowa.
1970 Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins (TLC) is born in Des Moines, Iowa.
1962 Sam Cooke records "Having A Party" and "Bring It On Home To Me."
1961 Chris Mars (drummer for The Replacements) is born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
1960 Roger Taylor (drummer for Duran Duran) is born in Nechells, Birmingham, England. He remains with the band until their performance at the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia in 1985 - but rejoins a decade later.
1957 Larry Williams records "Short Fat Fannie."
1946 John "Bucky" Wilkin (Ronny of Ronny & the Daytonas) is born in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
1943 '70s rock singer Gary Wright is born in Cresskill, New Jersey.
1942 '60s teen idol Bobby Rydell is born Robert Louis Ridarelli in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1941 R&B singer Claudine Clark, known for composing and performing the 1952 hit "Party Lights," is born in Macon, Georgia.
1938 Duane Eddy, '60s rock and roll guitarist, is born in Corning, New York.
Van Halen Succeeds With Sammy
1986Van Halen prove there is life after David Lee Roth as their album 5150, their first with Sammy Hagar, hits #1 in the US for the first of three weeks.
Read more26 APRIL
Featured Events
2013 Country singer George Jones dies at age 81 from hypoxic respiratory failure, just a couple weeks after his final concert in Knoxville, Tennessee.
2003 The Morgan Creek Bridge in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is renamed the James Taylor Bridge in honor of the singer, who mentioned it in his song "Copperline."
1994 Live release their third album, Throwing Copper. It very slowly finds an audience as radio stations and MTV warm to tracks like "Lightning Crashes" and "I Alone." The album goes to #1 in America a year after its release and sells over 8 million copies.
1978 The Last Waltz, director Martin Scorsese's acclaimed documentary of The Band's star-studded last concert, opens in theaters. The film features performances by Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, The Staple Singers and Dr. John.More
1977 The most famous club of the disco era, Studio 54, opens for business at 254 West 54th Street in New York City. Over the next three years, celebrity guests include Cher, Elton John, Michael Jackson, Brooke Shields, and Liza Minnelli. Donald Trump and his wife, Ivana, attend on opening night.
1977 Jim Steinman's play Neverland opens at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Five months later, three of the songs he wrote for the production appear on Meat Loaf's seminal album Bat Out Of Hell, which would become one of the 10 best-selling albums of all time.
1969 Walter Carlos's album Switched-On Bach, notable for being the first successful album to remix classical music compositions on the newly-invented Moog synthesizer, reaches #10 on the Billboard Albums chart. The popularity of the album is the commercial breakthrough for Moog synthesizers, which go on to be part of the soundtrack in the films Tron, The Shining, and A Clockwork Orange. This in part brings synthesized music to mainstream popularity, paving the way for disco (especially the 'hi-NRG' style) in the '70s.
1969 "Oh Happy Day" by The Edwin Hawkins Singers enters the Hot 100 at #72, becoming the first pure gospel song to make that chart. More
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