21 FEBRUARY
Featured Events
1995 Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band perform live together for the first time in seven years, playing the new song "Murder Incorporated" at a club in New York City.
1987 Twenty-six years after becoming a hit in America, Ben E. King's "Stand By Me" goes to #1 in the UK following its release in the movie of the same name.
1984 Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones meets 13-year-old Mandy Smith at the Lyceum in London. They get married five years later, when he is 52 and she is 18.
1981 REO Speedwagon's ninth album, Hi Infidelity, goes to #1 in America, displacing John Lennon's Double Fantasy.More
1977 At a concert stop at the Nassau Coliseum, every member of Kiss has some blood drawn. It's not for the Red Cross: the blood will be mixed with ink used to print the first Kiss comic book, which appears in June. The process from bloodletting to print is notarized for authenticity.
1970 The Jackson 5 perform their #1 hit "I Want You Back" and their new single, "ABC," on American Bandstand. It's their first appearance on the show; frontman Michael tells host Dick Clark he likes the weather in Los Angeles (it's much warmer than their hometown of Gary, Indiana) and digs The Beatles.
1933 Nina Simone is born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, North Carolina, where she begins playing the piano at age 3.
21 FEBRUARY
In Music History
2020 WAAF, the last rock station serving Boston, goes off the air, replaced with the Christian contemporary format K-Love. Their last song is "Black Sabbath," a jab at their new owners. That song was released in 1970, the same year WAAF went on the air.
2013 Cleotha Staples of The Staple Singers dies at age 78.
2012 Adele flips off producers at the Brit Awards when she is ushered off stage before she can finish the acceptance speech for her Album of the Year win.
2012 In an anti-Kremlin protest, three members of the band Pussy Riot perform an impromptu, obscenity-filled song at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour of the Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow. They are promptly ejected, and later arrested for hooliganism, making headlines around the world.
2011 Lady Gaga performs the first of two shows at Madison Square Garden that will make up the footage of her HBO concert special in May.
2010 On what would have been her 77th birthday, a sculpture of Nina Simone is dedicated in her hometown of Tyron, North Carolina in what is renamed "Nina Simone Plaza."
2008 Crystal Gayle is inducted into the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame.
2008 Paramore cancel a European tour because of "internal struggles." They take some time off, but resume operations a few months later.
2008 Paul Mawhinney's collection of 3 million vinyl records, amassed over 40 years while he owned a record store in Pittsburgh, is sold on eBay for $3,002,150. The bid is a sham, however, and Mawhinney holds onto his collection until 2013, when he sells it to the Brazilian collector Zero Freitas.
2007 The movie studio Dreamworks takes out a full-page ad in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter apologizing for (but not exactly admitting to) similarities between their movie Dreamgirls, adapted from the stage musical, and the book Dreamgirl: My Life As a Supreme by former Supreme Mary Wilson. The book gives a look at the behind-the-scenes manipulations at Motown Records, bearing similarities to the stories recounted in Dreamgirls.
2004 Les Gray of Mud dies of a heart attack at age 57.
2001 Colombian singer-songwriter Shakira wins her first (US) Grammy Award when her live MTV Unplugged release wins Best Latin Pop Album. The performance, filmed at the Grand Ballroom in New York City, featured acoustic-rock renditions of her Spanish-language tunes, including "Octavo Dia," "Ojos Asi," and "No Creo."
2000 Foo Fighters cancel a short tour of South America so they can play "Everlong" for David Letterman on his first show back from heart surgery.
1990 Paul McCartney is honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 32nd annual Grammy Awards, perhaps to make up for the paltry four awards they gave to The Beatles while they were still active. Bonnie Raitt is the big winner with four awards, including Album of the Year for Nick Of Time.
1987 Sly Stone is jailed for possession of cocaine in Los Angeles, an arrest which sends the singer into retirement and virtual seclusion upon his release.
Johnny Cash Leaves Hospital, Goes To Grammys
2001Johnny Cash gets out of the hospital, where he is treated for pneumonia, and makes it to the Grammy Awards that night, where he wins for Best Male Vocal Country Performance for "Solitary Man" - his 10th Grammy.
Cash's health has been in steady decline for the past few years as a host of diagnoses relating to his diabetes, including autonomic neuropathy, forces him to cut back on touring - but it doesn't keep him out of the recording studio. Peaking at #11, his album American III: Solitary Man (2000) is his highest-charting entry on the country tally since 1976's One Piece At A Time peaked at #2. The title track, a cover of Neil Diamond's debut 1966 single, earns him the Grammy for Best Male Country Performance. John Stewart hosts the ceremony at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, where Madonna takes the stage singing "Music" while gyrating on a glittery limo driven by Lil' Bow Bow. Music does make the people come together, including a crowd of protestors outside the venue who are outraged by Eminem's presence on the nomination ballot. His Marshall Mathers LP, they claim, is homophobic and sexist. The rapper responds to the controversy by singing his hit "Stan" with the openly gay Elton John, the evening's most anticipated performance. When the LP wins Best Rap Album, Em tells the crowd, "I guess, first of all, I want to thank everybody who could look past the controversy or whatever and see the album for what it was...and also for what it isn't." More highlights: Steely Dan's comeback album Two Against Nature earns the group their first-even Grammy wins with four prizes, including Album of the Year and Best Pop Performance by Duo or Group with Vocal for "Cousin Dupree." Country singer Shelby Lynne, who has been in the industry for 13 years, is named Best New Artist and duets with Sheryl Crow with "The Difficult Kind." Crow wins Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for "There Goes The Neighborhood." Faith Hill's country-pop album Breathe wins Best Country Album and Best Female Country Vocal Performance for the title track. "Let's Make Love," featuring husband Tim McGraw, wins for Best Country Collaboration With Vocals. U2 performs their uplifting electro-pop song "Beautiful Day," which scoops Song Of The Year, Record Of The Year and Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal. R&B sizzles as Destiny's Child hits the stage in scant blue costumes for a three-song production, including "Say My Name," which wins Best R&B Song and Best R&B Group Performance. The genre's latest sex icon, D'Angelo, also takes home Best R&B Album for Voodoo and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for his sensual single "Untitled (How Does It Feel)."
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