1952 Michael McDonald is born outside of St. Louis. As a solo artist, his hits include "I Keep Forgettin' (Every Time You're Near)" and "Sweet Freedom," but his voice is also heard on songs he records with The Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan, as well as hundreds of other appearances as a backup singer.
1950 Steve Hackett (guitarist for Genesis) is born in Pimlico, London, England.
1949 Stanley Knight (lead guitarist for Black Oak Arkansas) is born in Arkansas.
1946 Joe Schermie (bass player for Three Dog Night) is born Joseph Edward Schermetzler is born in Madison, Wisconsin.
1944 Country singer Moe Bandy is born in Meridian, Mississippi.
1942 Mildred Bailey records "More Than You Know."
1939 Ray Manzarek (of The Doors) is born in Chicago, Illinois.
1935 Gene McDaniels is born in Kansas City, Kansas, but grows up in Omaha, Nebraska. Wrote Roberta Flack's "Feel Like Makin' Love."
1924 The "Experiment In Modern Music" concert takes place at Aeolian Hall in New York, where a sold out crowd checks out a relatively new music called Jazz. George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" is performed in public for the first time at the show with Gershwin performing on piano with the orchestra.
1923 Mel Powell, founding dean of the school of music at the California Institute of the Arts and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer of the 1990 concerto Duplicates, is born Melvin Epstein in The Bronx, New York City.
1915 Lorne Greene, a radio personality who becomes known for his role as Ben Cartwright on the long-running Western Bonanza, is born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
1914 Saxophonist Tex Beneke, who solos on the Glenn Miller Orchestra's "In The Mood," is born in Fort Worth, Texas.
1912 Billy Murray records "Alexander's Bag-Pipe Band."
1904 Ted Mack is born William Edward Maguiness in Greeley, Colorado. He takes over as host of the popular radio talent contest The Original Amateur Hour in 1948 when it makes the leap to television, where it runs until 1970.
Police raid Keith Richards' Redlands estate, where they discover "various substances of a suspicious nature" and arrest him along with Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull. The whole thing is a setup.
Read more2017 Adele opens the Grammy Awards with a performance of "Hello," which wins for Song of the Year and Record of the Year. Later, she sings "Fastlove" in a tribute to George Michael, who passed away on Christmas day, 2016. Before she can finish the first chorus, she stops the song and starts over, saying, "I can't mess this up for him."More
1997 Snoop Doggy Dogg and Sean "Puffy" Combs hold a press conference where they call for an end to the East Coast-West Coast rap rivalry that has claimed the life of Tupac Shakur. "Kids around the world are watching," Long Beach rapper Snoop says. "By calling for a truce we're giving them something to live for." The detente fails to quell the violence: Less than a month later, The Notorious B.I.G. is killed in a shooting.
1981 Riding the (permanent) wave of their previous album, Rush release Moving Pictures. Featuring "Tom Sawyer," "Limelight" and "YYZ," it becomes the best-selling album in the Rush discography. "The Camera Eye" is the last 10-minute-long song Rush ever record in the studio.
1977 Barbra Streisand's soundtrack album A Star Is Born hits #1 in the US. Her fourth album to top the tally - following People (1964), Stoney End (1971), and The Way We Were (1974) - it features the #1 hit "Evergreen."
1976 Sal Mineo, an actor who starred alongside James Dean in the movies Giant and Rebel Without a Cause, is murdered by a deranged assailant. Mineo had several hits as a singer including "Start Movin' (In My Direction)," which reached #9 US in 1957.
1972 Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" hits #1 in the US. Eleven years later, Tina Turner revitalizes her career with a hit cover of the song.
1970 BBC's Top of the Pops broadcasts John Lennon's "Instant Karma!" performance clip, taped just the day before.
1937 On the Avenue, a musical starring Dick Powell and Alice Faye, debuts in movie theaters and introduces the holiday classic "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm."
©2024 Songfacts®, LLC