1 JULY
Featured Events
2009 Thanks to a surge in sales following his death on June 25, Michael Jackson holds the top nine positions on Billboard's Top Pop Catalog Albums chart.
2006 During the brief time when American Idol Season 5 winner Taylor Hicks is the most popular Taylor in music, his first single, "Do I Make You Proud?," hits #1 in America.More
1987 Napalm Death release their debut album, Scum, widely acknowledged as the first grindcore album. It peaks at #7 in the UK Indie chart.
1979 The Sony Walkman debuts in Japan, making music portable.More
1978 The Texxas Jam takes place at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas, with Aerosmith, Van Halen, Journey and Ted Nugent performing. 80,000 fans brave the 100 degree heat, cooled down by fire hoses brought in by the organizers. For Aerosmith, it marks a low point in their career as drug use and infighting are about to break up the band, and their performance suffers.
1971 Missy Elliott is born in Portsmouth, Virginia.
1967 Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Some Flowers In Your Hair)," written by John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas, reaches its chart peak of #4 in America, where it galvanizes the Flower Power movement.
1966 Bob Dylan releases the "thin, wild mercury" sound of Blonde on Blonde, rock's first double album. Minds are blown.More
1956 The family-friendly Steve Allen Show doesn't want Elvis Presley shaking his legendary pelvis, so he sings "Hound Dog" to a basset hound. Both Elvis and the pooch are dressed in formal wear.More
1 JULY
In Music History
2016 30-year-old Lady Gaga finally gets her driver's license.
2009 Following Michael Jackson's death the previous week, he becomes the first act to sell more than 1 million song downloads in a week.
2008 Gym Class Heroes' lead singer Travie McCoy assaults a fan who shouts out a racial slur just as their set finishes during the Warped Tour in St. Louis.
2008 Mel Galley (former Whitesnake guitarist) dies of esophageal cancer at age 60.
2008 Crüe Fest kicks off in West Palm Beach, Florida. The tour features Mötley Crüe, Buckcherry, Papa Roach, Sixx:A.M., and Trapt; it earns about $40 million.
2007 In memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, a concert is held at the newly built Wembley Stadium in London. Acts include friends of the Princess Duran Duran and Elton John as well as artists she enjoyed such as Nelly Furtado, Tom Jones and Kanye West.
2006 The Bethel Woods Center for the Arts opens on the grounds of the 1969 Woodstock festival in Bethel, New York. The brainchild of Alan Gerry, who sold his company, Cablevision Industries, to Time Warner for $2.8 billion, the Center includes a performance venue, and later, a museum.
2005 Luther Vandross dies at age 54 after suffering a stroke two years earlier that left him in a wheelchair.
2003 Flute player Herbie Mann dies of prostate cancer at age 73. His best-known song is "Hijack," a dance tune that hit #14 in 1975.
2000 In London, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails overdoses on China white heroin that he believes is cocaine. Reznor, who has been battling addiction throughout the '90s, redoubles his efforts to get sober and eventually does a few years later.
1999 Jennifer Lopez releases her debut album, On The 6.
1999 Guy Mitchell, '50s pop singer and TV host, dies of complications from cancer surgery at age 72.
1997 Radiohead release OK Computer in the US. With highly emotive songs and beguiling music videos for tracks like "Karma Police" and "Paranoid Android," it lands on many lists of the year's top albums.
1995 Legendary DJ Wolfman Jack, who famously spun rock and roll records from a border blaster station in Mexico throughout the '60s, dies of a heart attack at age 57.
1991 Members of the Olympia, Washington bands Bratmobile and Bikini Kill publish the first issue of Riot Grrrl, a mini-magazine that introduces the phrase, used to describe a female punk-rock ethos with a cutting edge but also a sense of humor. Bands that join the Riot Grrrl movement include L7 and Babes In Toyland.
The Band Release Music From Big Pink
1968The Band release Music from Big Pink, their debut studio album.
After backing Bob Dylan on his 1966 world tour, Robbie Robertson, Garth Hudson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko and Richard Manuel spend out two weeks recording with him at Big Pink, the house in West Saugerties, New York where they live and work. The sessions result in Dylan's Basement Tapes, but also in a whole album of material for his backing group, which Capitol Records names "The Band." Music from Big Pink contains three songs written or co-written by Dylan, who also painted the album cover. Sales are modest, and it only reaches #30 in the US, but the album earns glowing praise from critics and enthusiastic appraisals from The Band's peers: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, Roger Waters and Al Kooper cite it as a masterpiece that is inspirational in their own work. The only song to chart is "The Weight," which peaks at #63 the same week Jackie DeShannon's version reaches #55. The song shows off The Band's unique skill set: three lead vocalists (Helm, Danko and Manuel), a songwriter who clearly learned a thing or two from Dylan (Robertson), and a folksy sound that would be labeled "Country Rock" as other acts copy it. As word gets out, Music from Big Pink becomes a must-hear for anyone interested in the progression of rock. The Band follows with a self-titled album in 1969 that also earns high acclaim. By the time they dance their last waltz in 1976, they have made an indelible musical mark. In 1994, they are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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