3 FEBRUARY
In Music History
1977 Reggaeton star Daddy Yankee is born Ramon Rodriguez in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
1973 Elton John's reptilian rocker "Crocodile Rock" hits #1 in America for the first of three weeks, giving him his first chart-topper in that country.
1971 Lynn Anderson's "(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden" is certified Gold.
1969 Beatles John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr hire Allen Klein as the group's new manager, against the express wishes of Paul McCartney, who preferred his father-in-law Lee Eastman. The dissension is a deciding factor in the group's breakup a year later.
1968 The Lemon Pipers hit #1 in America with "Green Tambourine," a psychedelic song about a busker.
1967 Joe Meek, an experimental pop pioneer who wrote and produced the Tornados' "Telstar," fatally shoots his landlady before turning the gun on himself.
1966 Paul McCartney meets Stevie Wonder for the first time after Wonder's show at London's Scotch Of St. James nightclub.
1964 The Beach Boys release "Fun, Fun, Fun," which stalls at #5 in the US, thanks to Beatlemania.
1961 Bob Dylan makes his first recordings, versions of "San Francisco Bay Blues" and "Jesus Met the Woman at the Well," at the home of friends Sid and Bob Gleason in East Orange, New Jersey.
1959 Laurence "Lol" Tolhurst of The Cure is born in Horley, Surrey, England. A founding member, he starts out on drums, then moves to keyboards before he is sacked by Robert Smith in 1989.
1956 Lee Ranaldo (guitarist for Sonic Youth) is born in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York.
1950 The Ames Brothers' "Rag Mop" hits #1.
1949 Arthur Kane (bass guitarist for New York Dolls) is born in The Bronx, New York City.
1947 Folk singer Melanie is born Melanie Safka in Queens, New York. She makes a big impact at Woodstock, where she plays on the muddy first day, inspiration for her song "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)."
1947 Dave Davies (lead guitarist for The Kinks) is born in Fortis Green, London, England.
The Day The Music Died
1959Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson are killed in a plane crash. Don McLean would call it "The Day the Music Died" in his 1971 hit "American Pie."
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Featured Events
2013 Beyoncé invigorates the 2013 Super Bowl halftime show with a performance that reunites Destiny's Child.More
2003 Phil Spector is charged with murder after police are called to his 33-room mansion in Alhambra, California, and discover the actress Lana Clarkson dead from a gunshot wound.More
1989 "Wild Thing" by Tone Loc becomes the first rap single certified Platinum, with sales of over a million.
1976 David Bowie opens his US tour with a new persona: The Thin White Duke. He's dressed in a black-vested suit with slicked-back hair. Bowie later described the persona as "a nasty character indeed."
1960 Frank Sinatra launches the first fully artist-owned label, Reprise Records (pronounced "repreeze"), so he can own his own masters. Some of his cohorts, including Dean Martin and Rosemary Clooney, join the label, which is sold to Warner Brothers in 1963, where it becomes home to a number of famous acts, including Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell and Green Day.
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