4 FEBRUARY
In Music History
1989 Thanks to radio-station rediscovery, Sheriff hit #1 in America with the ballad "When I'm With You," which peaked at #61 when it was first released in 1983. The band, which has been defunct since 1985, never get back together.
1987 Liberace dies of AIDS-related pneumonia at age 67.
1984 Thanks to a music video that puts their flamboyant frontman Boy George on a Mississippi steamboat in the 1800s, the British band Culture Club hit #1 in America with "Karma Chameleon."
1982 Alex Harvey (of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band) dies of a massive heart attack at age 46.
1979 Save The Whales organizes a month-long rock memorabilia auction in San Francisco.
1977 American Bandstand gets a primetime special in honor of the show's 25th anniversary. The show features one of the first "all-star jams," as Chuck Berry is joined by Greg Allman, Junior Walker, The Pointer Sisters, Charlie Daniels and several others on a performance of "Roll Over Beethoven."
1976 Rapper Cam'ron is born Cameron Ezike Giles in Harlem, New York.
1975 Natalie Imbruglia is born in Sydney, Australia. Before embarking on a singing career, she stars on the soap opera Neighbours.
1975 Louis Jordan dies of a heart attack at age 66.
1974 John Lennon begins his "Lost Weekend," which lasts 18 months. Separating from Yoko, he goes on an extended bender, often joined by his friend Nilsson.
1969 In response to the other Beatles hiring Allen Klein as manager the day before, Paul McCartney hires his father-in-law's firm, Eastman & Eastman, as general legal counsel for Apple Corps.
1968 US Attorney General John Mitchell receives a secret memo from Senator Strom Thurmond, in which Thurmond suggests deporting John Lennon due to his antiwar stance.
1966 The Who play their first show as headliners, at the Astoria in Finsbury Park, England. Also appearing are The Fortunes and The Merseys.
1963 Kevin "Noodles" Wasserman (lead guitarist for The Offspring) is born in Los Angeles, California.
1962 Country singer Clint Black is born in Long Branch, New Jersey.
Prince Dazzles In The Rain At Super Bowl
2007Prince wows at the Super Bowl halftime show, closing with an otherworldly rendition of "Purple Rain" in the rain.
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Featured Events
2012 About 100 dancers participate in a Soul Train-style line dance in Times Square as a tribute to the recently deceased founder of the show, Don Cornelius.
2012 Adele becomes the first female British artist to have three #1 songs from the same album top the Billboard Hot 100 chart when "Set Fire to the Rain" hits the top spot, following "Rolling In The Deep" and "Someone Like You" from the album 21.
2010 A judge rules that the flute riff of the Men at Work song "Down Under" plagiarizes another Australian classic: the 1932 song "Kookaburra."More
1998 Judas Priest lead singer Rob Halford comes out as gay in an interview with MTV. "I feel this is the moment to discuss it," he says. "A lot of homophobia still exists in the music world."
1983 Karen Carpenter of the Carpenters dies at age 32 of complications from anorexia.
1980 The Ramones release their fifth album, End of the Century, produced by Phil Spector. Dee Dee Ramone claims Spector pulled a gun on him during the sessions.More
1978 The Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive," which features in the opening scene of Saturday Night Fever, hits #1 in the US and stays there for four weeks.
1977 Fleetwood Mac release their landmark album Rumours. The LP sets a record for most weeks at #1 with 31, and becomes one of the best-selling albums of all time, with worldwide sales estimated at about 40 million.More
1974 The Stooges play a bar in Wayne, Michigan, where a biker gang called The Scorpions is initiating a new member by having him hurl eggs at lead singer Iggy Pop, who responds by going into the crowd to fight him.More
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