8 JANUARY
Featured Events
2016 David Bowie's Blackstar album is released on his 69th birthday. When Bowie dies two days later, it becomes clear that his ruminations on mortality are his parting words.More
1993 Shortly after midnight on what would have been Elvis's 58th birthday, a 29-cent stamp with his image is officially dedicated at a Graceland ceremony.More
1991 Steve Clark of Def Leppard dies of an accidental drug overdose at age 30.
1968 Stax Records releases Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay" and Sam & Dave's "I Thank You." Both are very successful, but neither artist scores another hit (Redding had died about a month earlier).
1967 R. Kelly is born Robert Sylvester Kelly in Chicago. He performs with the groups MGM (Musically Gifted Men) and Public Announcement before releasing his solo debut, 12 Play, in 1994, featuring the #1 hit "Bump N' Grind."
1957 Rock and roll comes to Australia when Bill Haley, LaVern Baker and The Platters kick off a tour at Newcastle Stadium that continues on to West Melbourne Stadium and Sydney Stadium. It's the first rock stadium show, pre-dating the Beatles Shea Stadium concert by eight years.
1935 The King is born: Elvis Aaron Presley arrives in Tupelo, Mississippi.
8 JANUARY
In Music History
2024 21 Savage releases the official trailer for his movie American Dream: The 21 Savage Story, starring Donald Glover and Caleb McLaughlin (Lucas from Stranger Things). There is no film: It's later revealed to be a marketing ploy to promote his American Dream album, which drops four days later and debuts at #1.
2021 Morgan Wallen releases Dangerous: The Double Album, with the hit "7 Summers." It debuts at #1 in America and stays there for 10 weeks, the longest run at the top since Drake's Views in 2016.
2021 Seventeen-year-old Olivia Rodrigo, known as an actress on various Disney shows, releases her debut single, "Drivers License," a heart-rending song that tops the charts in many territories, including America, where it stays at #1 for eight weeks.
2018 The college football national championship game stages a halftime show for the first time, with Kendrick Lamar taking the stage. Georgia is up 13-0 at the break, but Alabama comes back to win 26-23.
2015 Gospel singer Andraé Crouch dies of complications from a heart attack at age 72.
2014 Reather Dixon Turner of The Bobbettes dies at age 69.
2013 Enigmatic pop icon David Bowie releases the single "Where Are We Now?," from his upcoming album The Next Day. The date of the release also coincides with his birthday. It is his first release in over a decade.
2013 Twenty One Pilots release their breakthrough album, Vessel.
2012 Blues singer Dave Alexander, who sometimes recorded as Omar Shariff, dies at age 73.
2012 Rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard's FBI file is released. The report details nine arrests for the rapper, and says his group Wu-Tang Clan is "heavily involved in the sale of drugs, illegal guns, weapons possession, murder, carjacking and other types of violent crime."
2004 George Harrison's estate sues Dr. Gilbert Lederman of Staten Island University Hospital for $10 million, alleging he forced a dying Harrison to sign souvenirs for him.
2002 Fabian is awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7065 Hollywood Blvd.
1997 Chuck D guest stars on the NBC sitcom NewsRadio episode "Rap," to face off against Phil Hartman's Bill McNeal, who is convinced rap music will destroy society.
1991 Jeremy Delle, a 15-year-old student at Richardson High School in Texas, shoots himself in his English class. When Eddie Vedder reads about it, he writes the song "Jeremy" about Delle and other young people who have committed suicide in schools.
1989 Richard Marx marries Dirty Dancing actress Cynthia Rhodes, subject of his song "Right Here Waiting." They divorce in 2014.
David Bowie Is Born
1947David Jones is born in London. At age 18, he changes his name to David Bowie (after the Bowie knife) to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of The Monkees.
Bowie performs with several bands as a teenager ahead of releasing the album Space Oddity in 1969 – the title track of which earns him his first #1 in the UK. After a period of experimentation, Bowie re-emerges to even greater success in 1972 with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. The concept album served as the introduction to the musical chameleon's original alter ego: the bisexual extraterrestrial Ziggy Stardust, whose flamboyant clothing and androgynous persona challenge gender, sexual and social stereotypes like never before. The 1970s also herald the launch of Bowie's acting career; he stars as an alien seeking help for his drought-stricken planet in Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth, and opposite screen legend Marlene Dietrich in David Hemmings' Just a Gigolo. International fame coupled with a voracious cocaine habit soon takes its toll on Bowie who decamps to West Berlin in a bid to get clean in 1976. It is here that the star – who is going by the cadaverous Thin White Duke alter ego – records the critically acclaimed (but commercially overlooked) Berlin Trilogy (Low, Heroes and Lodger) with producer and longtime collaborator Brian Eno. Having kicked his drug addiction, Bowie leaves Germany and returns to a new wave of popularity in 1983 with Let's Dance. Co-produced by Chic's Nile Rodgers, the album goes platinum in both the UK and the US, where it also begets three Top 20 singles: "Modern Love," "China Girl" and "Let's Dance," the latter a #1 hit in both the UK and US. The end of the 1980s are dominated by Bowie's involvement with the heavy metal outfit Tin Machine, while the 1990s give rise to the singer trying out everything from industrial (Outside) to drum and bass (Earthling). His last album, Blackstar, is released in 2016 on his 69th birthday and portends his death two days later.
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