Pick a Day

15 FEBRUARY

In Music History

1991 Rod Stewart's ex-girlfriend, supermodel Kelly Emberg, files a $25 million palimony suit against the singer in Los Angeles Superior Court.

1984 Ethel Merman, one of the top singers in Broadway musicals, dies of brain cancer at age 76.

1984 Blues guitarist Gary Clark, Jr. is born in Austin, Texas.

1982 The Tennessee General Assembly votes the bluegrass tune "Rocky Top," originally recorded by The Osborne Brothers and made popular by Lynn Anderson, the fifth official state song. It was written by celebrated husband-and-wife songwriting team Felice and Boudleaux Bryant.

1981 Mike Bloomfield, a renowned guitarist with The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and The Electric Flag, is found dead in his car under mysterious circumstances. Al Kooper, who played with him on many Bob Dylan sessions, surmises that Bloomfield overdosed and his drug dealer drove him to a secluded spot to be found later.

1979 Barry Manilow wins his first and only Grammy Award when "Copacabana (At The Copa)" is named Best Male Pop Vocal Performance at the 21st Annual Grammy Awards.

1979 Donna Summer's "Last Dance" wins two Grammys: Best Female R&B Vocal and Best R&B Song.

1979 RCA Records starts handling distribution for A&M Records, which was the largest independent record company before the deal.

1977 Sid Vicious joins The Sex Pistols.

1977 The Best Of George Harrison is certified gold.

1976 Incubus frontman Brandon Boyd is born in Van Nuys, California.

1975 Rush release Fly by Night. It is their second album, following 1974's Rush, but is the first with new drummer/lyricist Neil Peart. Partially due to Peart's influence, this album veers from the sound of the band's debut and moves closer to the progressive styling that eventually makes Rush a legend of the genre.

1975 Performing "People Gotta Move," Gino Vannelli becomes the first white singer to perform on Soul Train, beating Elton John by a few months. The first white musician to play the show was guitarist Dennis Coffey with his instrumental hit "Scorpio" in 1972.

1975 After record executive Morris Levy releases an album called Roots - John Lennon Sings The Great Rock & Roll Hits without Lennon's permission, Capitol Records rush releases John Lennon's Rock and Roll album, which contains the completed versions of the songs. Lennon had given Levy some master tapes from the sessions as part of compensation for using a Chuck Berry lyric in "Come Together": "Here come old flat-top, he come groovin' up slowly."

1974 Deep Purple release Burn, their first album with the Mark III lineup of the band, featuring David Coverdale as lead singer.