24 JANUARY
Featured Events
2018 Elton John announces his retirement from touring, ending with a five-year Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour.More
2005 The second Britney Spears album, Oops!... I Did It Again, is certified Diamond for sales of over 10 million in America, making her the only female artist to reach this milestone with her first two albums.
1998 The Titanic soundtrack goes to #1 in America, replacing Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love. Both albums contain the hit song from the movie, "My Heart Will Go On."
1982 The Super Bowl is held in Pontiac, Michigan, so the halftime show is a salute to Motown. Diana Ross sings the national anthem.
1962 "The Twist" craze peaks, with a re-released version of Chubby Checker's song at #1 for the last time.
1961 Bob Dylan arrives in New York after dropping out of the University of Minnesota. He immediately gets to work, playing a show at the club Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village.
1947 Warren Zevon is born in Chicago, Illinois. He tours as a keyboardist with The Everly Brothers in the '70s while attempting to kickstart a solo career. He gets a boost when Linda Ronstadt begins recording several of his tunes.
1941 Neil Diamond (yep, that's his real name) is born in Brooklyn, New York.
24 JANUARY
In Music History
2019 Weezer release The Teal Album, a collection of covers featuring their hit rendition of "Africa." Selections include "Take On Me," "No Scrubs" and "Billie Jean."
2016 Butch Trucks, co-founder and drummer of The Allman Brothers Band, dies at age 69 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
2015 INXS guitarist Tim Farriss severs the ring finger on his left hand while operating a winch on his boat. Doctors reattach the digit after two surgeries.
2012 Pete Townshend sells the publishing rights to the songs he has written to the Spirit Music Group, which plans to place more of his music in TV shows, movies and commercials. Townshend's catalog includes about 400 songs, most of which he wrote for The Who.
2009 Kings Of Leon play a fundraiser for the University of Chicago's Comer Children's Hospital at the House of Blues in Chicago. Despite the $150 ticket price, the show sells out.
2007 Randy Newman publishes the lyrics to his song "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country" in The New York Times as an editorial. In the song, he points out that George W. Bush isn't as bad as other world leaders from history, like King Leopold or Stalin.
2005 Country-pop singer Lynn Anderson is arrested for stealing a Harry Potter DVD from a supermarket in Taos, New Mexico, and then, allegedly, punching the arresting officer in the stomach.
2002 In San Antonio, Texas, Tex-Mex legend Freddy Fender receives a much-needed kidney transplant from his daughter, Marla Huerta Garcia.
2000 Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young open the first tour of the full quartet in 25 years with a show at Palace of Auburn Hills in Detroit, Michigan.
1992 Gregory McPherson, the former music director for New Kids On The Block, claims the group did "no more than 20 percent" of the singing on their albums, alleging that their producer, Maurice Starr, did the lead vocals along with Starr's brother. The Kids countersue for defamation and McPherson recants the accusation.
1991 The Cure film their MTV Unplugged special at Limehouse TV Studios in London. The acoustic set includes an alternate version of their new song "A Letter To Elise." Audience members are also given kazoos to replace the synthesizer riffs on "The Walk."
1989 Skid Row release their self-titled debut album. Two days later, they join Bon Jovi on the New Jersey Syndicate tour. The album, which includes "18 And Life" and "Youth Gone Wild," goes on to sell over 5 million copies in America.
1986 Singer/actor Gordon MacRae, who starred in the film versions of the musicals Oklahoma! and Carousel, dies of cancer and pneumonia at age 64.
1981 Aerosmith's Steven Tyler gets in a nasty motorcycle accident with his 17-year-old babysitter riding on the back. He spends the remainder of the year recovering, which delays the band's next album, Rock In A Hard Place.
1980 The Ants of Adam & The Ants leave to join Bow Wow Wow, whose manager, the punk godfather Malcolm McLaren, presents the offer. Adam Ant had paid McLaren £1000 for musical advice, for which he learned about African beats, but lost his band, which he quickly replaced.
Aretha Franklin Gets The Muscle Shoals Sound And Her First Hit
1967Aretha Franklin records her first Top 10 pop hit, "(I Never Loved A Man) The Way That I Love You," at a tumultuous session at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama where her husband gets into an altercation with one of the musicians.
Franklin, recently signed to Atlantic Records after only middling success in six years recording for Columbia, heads to Muscle Shoals at the behest of her producer, Jerry Wexler, a bigwig at the label. The sleepy Alabama town has a way of keeping artists on point and bringing out their best, and the musicians are top-tier. This session is far from sleepy though, and Aretha's husband/manager Ted White exchanges words with trumpet player Ken Laxton and ends up getting in an altercation with the studio owner. After the session Aretha and her husband leave, and she never returns to Muscle Shoals. The sound she got during this fateful session is exactly what Wexler is looking for, and the key to making Aretha the superstar she is destined to be. Since Franklin won't go to Muscle Shoals, he instead brings the musicians to her, flying them up to New York City to finish the album. These guys become her backing band for her next three albums, each time flying to New York on Atlantic's dime to record with Franklin. These recordings make Franklin one of the biggest stars of the '60s, and when word gets out that she's doing it with musicians from Muscle Shoals, many artists book time to work with them at FAME and later Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. When the artist arrive, they are often shocked to discover that Aretha's backing band is white.
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