2 FEBRUARY
Featured Events
2011 The White Stripes split up after six albums, ending their run as one of the most successful rock duos.More
1996 Gene Kelly, one of the most famous dancers of his time, dies at age 83. Kelly was also an accomplished singer, known for crooning the title track of Singin' In The Rain.
1993 Willie Nelson settles his $17 million tax debt with the US Internal Revenue Service by paying them $9 million in cash and assets already seized. Some of the cash was raised through sales of his 1991 album The IRS Tapes: Who'll Buy My Memories, released specifically to fund his payout.
1993 Bill Murray can't stop waking up to the Sonny and Cher song "I Got You Babe" in the movie Groundhog Day.More
1979 Sid Vicious of The Sex Pistols, out on bail after being accused of killing his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, dies of a heroin overdose at age 21.
1974 Barbra Streisand scores her first #1 when "The Way We Were" hits the top spot.More
1973 Elvis Presley meets Muhammad Ali in Las Vegas. The two exchange gifts, and Ali later says, "I felt sorry for him because he didn't enjoy life the way he should. He stayed indoors all the time. I told him he should go out and see people."
1959 At the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper play their last show as part of the "Winter Dance Party" tour. Admission: $1.25. The last song of the night: The Big Bopper's "Chantilly Lace."
2 FEBRUARY
In Music History
2019 Marshmello performs a virtual concert inside the online game Fortnite that is seen by an estimated 10 million gamers. To pull it off, he is rigged to a body-motion suit that transfers his movements to the screen. It's the first large-scale integration of a concert within a video game.
2011 Leonard Cohen's first grandchild is born to proud parents Lorca Cohen, Rufus Wainwright and "deputy dad" Jorn Weisbrodt. Little Viva Katherine, named after Wainwright's mother, the folk singer Kate McGarrigle, is born only a year after Cohen reportedly remarked on childhood to both Lorca and Rufus: "You know, it's pretty much the only amazing thing there is."
2007 Joe Hunter, who played piano in the Motown house band The Funk Brothers, dies at age 79.
2007 The Spinners founding member Billy Henderson dies of complications from diabetes at age 67 in Daytona Beach, Florida.
2004 Exodus return after a 12-year hiatus with their sixth studio album, Tempo of the Damned.
2002 Paul Baloff, who sang on Exodus' 1985 debut album, Bonded Blood, dies of a heart attack at age 41.
1999 Freddy Fender is awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1992 Todd Rundgren has his third child, a son named Rebop.
1985 "I Want To Know What Love Is" by Foreigner begins a two-week run at #1 in the US, the first song with a gospel choir to top the chart. The song was written by Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones and inspired by the woman who would later become his wife: Ann Dexter-Jones.
1980 The Specials hit #1 in the UK for the first time with "Too Much Too Young," but they're busy touring America, where their ska sound has yet to find much of an audience.
1976 Lynyrd Skynyrd release Gimme Back My Bullets. It's their fourth album, following Nuthin' Fancy and preceding Street Survivors, which is their last release before a fatal plane crash ends the original lineup.
1975 Stevie Wonder's daughter Aisha (heard crying at the beginning of "Isn't She Lovely") is born. Aisha is Wonder's first child, born to Yolanda Simmons.
1975 Billy Mohler, best known as a member of The Calling, is born in Laguna Beach, California.
1973 NBC debuts The Midnight Special rock variety show, its response to ABC's popular In Concert series. The first host: Helen Reddy.
1973 Emerson, Lake and Palmer keyboard player Keith Emerson injures his hands when a rigged piano explodes prematurely during a San Francisco gig, leaving him with minor cuts and a broken fingernail.
Shakira Is Born
1977Shakira is born Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll in Barranquilla, Colombia. At 13, she gets a record deal with Sony Music – the first step on her path to becoming a worldwide superstar.
After a couple of lukewarm releases, Shakira becomes a sensation in Spanish-speaking countries with Pies Descalzos (1995) and Donde Estan Los Ladrones? (1998). The singer's heritage shines through on the Latin pop albums, incorporating elements of Spanish rock and Middle Eastern instrumentation, inspired by her part-Lebanese ancestry. The fiery tracks cover the different facets of love on "Ciega, Sordomuda" and "Tu" and explore social topics on "Octavo Dia" and "Donde Estan Los Ladrones?" With the album reaching #1 on the US Latin Music charts, producer Emilio Estefan pushes Shakira to make her move on the English-language pop market. With the help of Emilio's wife, Gloria Estefan, the Spanish-speaking singer eases into the unfamiliar language and releases her first album in English: Laundry Service (2001). Not only does it peak at #3 on the albums chart, but it also spawns her first Hot 100 entry: "Whenever, Wherever." The song, a fusion of Latin and worldbeat, confuses yet enthralls listeners with quirky lyrics like "my breasts are small and humble so you don't confuse them with mountains." The Colombian songstress follows up her first international success with a two-part release that merges her native Spanish with her newfound English. Oral Fijacion Vol 1. features the hit "La Tortura," a reggaeton-infused track that has Shakira kicking her cheating lover to the curb, while Oral Fixation Vol 2. introduces her first #1 hit, "Hips Don't Lie." A collaboration with Wyclef Jean, the energetic salsa track is inspired by Shakira's habit of letting her hips guide her hits. The singer, a celebrated belly dancer, tells her musicians, "My hips don't lie! Are they moving? They're not moving! So this is not ready." A bonafide superstar, Shakira continues to experiment with different styles, going electropop with She Wolf (2009), adding merengue to Sale El Sol (2010), and dipping into country and new wave on Shakira (2014). By the time she releases El Dorado in 2017, Shakira is one of the world's best-selling musical artists, with more than 75 million record sales. Shakira's success is no surprise to fellow Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Nobel Prize-winning author who wrote of the singer in a 1999 profile: "No one of any age can sing or dance with the innocent sensuality Shakira seems to have invented."
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