5 APRIL
Featured Events
2017 At age 73, Barry Manilow comes out as gay.More
2008 Leona Lewis hits #1 in the US with "Bleeding Love." It's the first American hit for Lewis, who won the UK version of The X Factor in 2006.
2005 On the eleventh anniversary of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain's suicide, his hometown of Aberdeen, Washington adds the phrase "Come As You Are" to its welcome sign.More
2002 Alice In Chains frontman Layne Staley dies after overdosing on heroin and cocaine. The 34-year-old singer had fallen into addiction and lost most contact with the outside world. His body isn't discovered until two weeks later, when police enter his apartment on April 19 after friends and associates report him missing.
1994 Kurt Cobain of Nirvana kills himself with a shotgun at age 27. His body isn't discovered until three days later when an electrician enters to install an alarm.
1968 With tensions high the night after Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated, James Brown goes ahead with his concert at the Boston Garden, agreeing to televise the show to help keep calm in the city.More
1964 The Beatles film the famous opening scene from their first movie, A Hard Day's Night, running away from several rabid female fans at London's Marylebone train station.
1961 On The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet episode "A Question of Suits and Ties," Ricky Nelson sings "Travelin' Man" in what could be considered the first music video.More
1923 Joe Oliver and King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, featuring a young Louis Armstrong, make the first jazz recordings by an African American band at Gennett Records in rural Richmond, Indiana.More
5 APRIL
In Music History
2019 The Aretha Franklin documentary Amazing Grace is finally released in theaters, 47 years after it was recorded in 1972.More
2018 The EP Universal Love – Wedding Songs Reimagined is released, with six classic songs sung from the perspective of same-sex couples. Bob Dylan does "She's Funny That Way" as "He's Funny That Way," and St. Vincent turns "Then He Kissed Me" into "Then She Kissed Me."More
2017 Trans-Siberian Orchestra founder Paul O'Neill is found dead in a Tampa, Florida, hotel room. The band announces the 61-year-old rocker died from a chronic illness.
2015 Two days after Furious 7 is released in theaters, the "See You Again" video, featuring footage from the film, debuts on Facebook and Twitter. The next day, it is posted on YouTube, where it eventually breaks the record for most views, previously held by "Gangnam Style."More
2012 The Philip Lynott Exhibition opens at the 02 in London, celebrating the legacy of the Thin Lizzy frontman.
2011 Folk musician Gil Robbins (of the folk band The Highwaymen) dies of prostate cancer two days after his 80th birthday in Baja California, Mexico.
2009 Donald Trump fires TLC member Tionne Watkins, better known by her stage name T-Boz, in the sixth week of The Celebrity Apprentice, Season 8.
2008 Toto breaks up after performing its final concert in Seoul.
2006 Rock and roll singer-songwriter Gene Pitney dies of a heart attack at age 66 while touring the UK.
2005 Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas releases his debut solo album, …Something To Be, featuring the Top 10 hit "Lonely No More."More
1998 Prolific rock drummer Cozy Powell, who did time in Rainbow and Black Sabbath, dies at 50 when he crashes his car on the M4 near Bristol, England. He was racing to his girlfriend's house, who had called him distraught.
1988 Tracy Chapman's eponymous debut album is released.
1987 Jazz drummer Buddy Rich's funeral takes place in Los Angeles, with Frank Sinatra, Artie Shaw, and Johnny Carson in attendance.
1985 Thousands of radio stations play "We Are The World" simultaneously at 10:50 a.m. EST. In the next few weeks, the song goes to #1 in America and the UK.
1984 Marvin Gaye's funeral takes place in Los Angeles, with Smokey Robinson, Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones and Berry Gordy attending. Gaye died 4 days earlier when he was shot by his father during an argument.
Pharrell Williams Is Born
1973Singer/superproducer Pharrell Williams is born in Virginia Beach, Virginia. As half of the hip-hop production duo The Neptunes, he's a prime architect of the popular music landscape of the 2000s.
Williams and Chad Hugo, a fellow Virginia native and music lover, attend the same summer music camp for gifted kids, and the pair start writing songs and making tracks together just for fun. When they start performing as The Neptunes at high school talent shows, they catch the attention of Teddy Riley, the legendary producer who created New Jack Swing. With Riley as their mentor, the duo spend the '90s honing their production skills by crafting tunes for Riley's group Blackstreet ("Tonight's The Night"), Noreaga ("Superthug") and Ol' Dirty Bastard ("Got Your Money"). By 2003, 43% of songs being played on American radio are Neptunes productions (and 20% in Britain) thanks to their work for superstars like Justin Timberlake ("Rock Your Body"), Britney Spears ("I'm A Slave 4 U"), and Nelly ("Hot In Herre"). Williams and Hugo also launch a side project, the hip-hop/rock outfit N.E.R.D., with Williams as its lead singer. Their debut album, In Search Of... (2001), is well-received but doesn't garner the same level of acclaim as their Neptunes productions. Williams branches out as a solo artist in 2006 with In My Mind but really hits his stride in the ensuing decade when his Despicable Me 2 song "Happy" hits the charts in 2013 - the same year he sings on Daft Punk's hit "Get Lucky" and guests on "Blurred Lines," the controversial single he writes with its singer, Robin Thicke. Years of generating platinum-plated hits adds a lot of star power to Williams' name, which allows him to pursue endeavors outside of music, like starting clothing lines (Ice Cream, Billionaire Boys Club) and producing movies (he's one of five producers on the Oscar-nominated 2016 film Hidden Figures). But performing and producing are the hats he wears the most, even if he doesn't make much of a distinction between the two. "Creating is creating," he tells Q magazine. "I try not to put a name on what it is, each individual thing that I do. I just do it."
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