Pick a Day

23 JANUARY

In Music History

1990 Original Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Allen Collins, a survivor of their 1977 plane crash, dies of pneumonia - a complication of paralysis caused by a 1986 car accident.

1988 Seattle producer Jack Endino oversees the first recording session of an unknown, unnamed grunge band soon to be called Nirvana. The session takes place at Reciprocal Recording, where many of the genre's pioneers - including Soundgarden, Mudhoney, and Green River - cut their seminal albums. Nirvana returns to the studio a few months later to work on their debut album, Bleach.

1988 The California Raisins' "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" peaks at #84 on Billboard's Hot 100.

1981 Orchestral composer Samuel Barber dies of cancer at age 70. Barber won the Pulitzer Prize for Music twice: first for the 1956 opera Vanessa and then for his 1962 Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.

1979 Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys divorces his wife Marilyn (one-time member of the Honeys and mother of Wendy and Carnie Wilson of Wilson Phillips).

1978 Terry Kath (singer and original guitarist for Chicago) dies at age 31 when he accidentally shoots himself in the head.

1970 Judy Collins is refused permission to sing testimony at the infamous "Chicago 7" trial.

1969 Elvis Presley records "Suspicious Minds" at American Sound, a small studio in Memphis. The song is a huge comeback hit for Elvis and gives him his last #1 in America.

1964 The Temptations release "The Way You Do The Things You Do."

1962 Tony Bennett records "I Left My Heart in San Francisco."

1961 Nina Simone's "Trouble in Mind" peaks at #92, where it will stay for one week.

1960 The Paradons record "Diamonds And Pearls."

1959 The "Winter Dance Party" tour gets underway with a show at the Million Dollar Ballroom in Milwaukee. Before the tour is over, headliners Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper are killed in a plane crash.More

1959 Earl Falconer (bass player for UB40) is born in Meriden, Warwickshire, England.

1957 Bill Haley & his Comets attend the Australian premiere of their movie Don't Knock The Rock while on tour there.