10 JULY
In Music History
1962 NASA launches the Telstar 1 satellite, the first active communications satellite, inspiring the Tornadoes' instrumental hit "Telstar" later that year.
1962 Christopher "Play" Martin (of Kid 'N Play) is born in Queens, New York City.
1961 Bobby Lewis's "Tossin' And Turnin'" hits #1 for the first of seven weeks.
1959 Sandy West is born Sandy Pesavento in Long Beach, California. Together with Joan Jett, she is a founding member of the teenage all-female rock band The Runaways, playing drums. After the band splits she leaves the music industry, and dies at the age of 47 from lung cancer.
1954 Neil Tennant (lead vocalist, keyboardist for Pet Shop Boys) is born in North Shields, Tyneside, England.
1950 The nation's favorite popular music countdown, "Your Hit Parade," gets its own home on NBC TV to match its longtime radio counterpart.
1950 The Victor Talking Machine Company trademarks the phrase "His Master's Voice," which refers to the dog in their logo (Nipper) listening to a record player because he thinks it is his owner. The company later becomes the record label RCA Victor.
1949 Greg Kihn, known for his '80s hits "The Breakup Song (They Don't Write 'Em)" and "Jeopardy," is born in Baltimore, Maryland.
1949 Dave Smalley (lead singer, guitarist of Down By Law) is born in Oil City, Pennsylvania.
1947 Arlo Guthrie is born in Coney Island, New York.
1944 John "Beaky" Dymond (of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich) is born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England.
1943 Jerry Miller (songwriter, guitarist for Moby Grape) is born in Tacoma, Washington.
1942 Sixto Díaz Rodríguez (better known simply as "Rodríguez") is born in Detroit, Michigan. He is the subject of the 2012 film Searching for Sugar Man.
1942 Heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio (of Black Sabbath, Rainbow) is born Ronald James Padavona in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
1941 Jazz icon Jelly Roll Morton, whose "Jelly Roll Blues" was the first published jazz composition, dies at age 50.
Tina Turner Turns Deadly In Mad Max
1985Tina Turner stars opposite Mel Gibson in the post-apocalyptic action flick Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Turner sings two hit songs for the movie: "One Of The Living" and "We Don't Need Another Hero."
Read more10 JULY
Featured Events
2017 With nearly 2.9 billion views, "See You Again" by Wiz Khalifa and Charlie Puth breaks the record for most-viewed video on YouTube, overtaking "Gangnam Style" by PSY. In August, it is overtaken by "Despacito."
2008 By simply tapping an app button on an iPhone, music fans can finally get an answer to the timeless question, "What's that song?" Shazam's free smartphone app is the first music recognition service of its kind - using a phone's microphone to listen to any song being played publicly - like in a restaurant, at a friend's house, or on TV - and identify it. And it actually works.More
1989 The Monkees get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. At the ceremony, all four Monkees reunite for the first time - Mike Nesmith was a holdout on their reunion tour.
1985 Playboy publishes nude photos of Madonna taken before she was famous.More
1936 Billie Holiday becomes the first major artist to record the classic song "Summertime," which was featured in the musical Porgy and Bess a year earlier.
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