2 JULY
In Music History
1970 Rapper Monie Love is born Simone Gooden in Battersea, London, England.
1969 Mountain form in Long Island with former Vagrants member Leslie West at the helm.
1969 Barbra Streisand starts a month-long run of shows to open the new 2000-seat theater at the International Hotel in Las Vegas. She's breaking in the venue for Elvis Presley, who starts a run of shows there on July 31.
1967 Rick Nelson stars in the short-lived (it lasts three months) TV series Malibu U on ABC.
1965 Dave Parsons (bassist for Bush) is born in Hillingdon, London, England.
1963 Little-known Barbra Streisand plays Las Vegas for the first time, opening for Liberace at the Riviera. She returns to Vegas as a top draw in 1969, becoming the first artist to play the Showroom Internationale in the International Hotel.
1958 Elvis Presley's fourth movie, King Creole, opens while The King is serving in the Army. Elvis gets surprisingly good reviews for his acting.
1956 Elvis Presley records "Hound Dog" at the RCA studios in New York City. Needing a B-side, Elvis and his team listen to some demos and find a song called "Don't Be Cruel," which they also record in the session. The two songs are released 11 days later as a double-A-side single and set numerous records for sales and chart position.
1955 The Lawrence Welk Show premieres on ABC.
1954 Pete Briquette (bassist for The Boomtown Rats) is born Patrick Martin Cusack in Ballyjamesduff, County Cavan, Ireland. His stage name is a nod to his homeland, where peat briquettes were burned for heat.
1952 Johnny Colla, who plays guitar and saxophone for Huey Lewis & the News and also assists with songwriting, is born in Sacramento, California.
1949 Roy "The Professor" Bittan (keyboardist for Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band) is born in Rockaway Beach, Queens, New York.
1939 Leapy Lee, known for the 1968 hit single "Little Arrows," is born Graham Pulleyblank in Eastbourne, England.
1939 Paul Williams (original lead singer for The Temptations) is born in Birmingham, Alabama.
1934 Folk singer Tom Springfield (of The Springfields) is born Dionysius P. A. O'Brien in Hampstead, London, England. He'll welcome sister Dusty Springfield a few years later.
Guns N' Roses Start A Riot In St. Louis
1991At a Guns N' Roses show in St. Louis, Axl Rose grows irate when he sees someone in the crowd taking pictures, and he leaves the stage, announcing, "Thanks to the lame-ass security, I'm going home." A riot follows, and the band's equipment is destroyed.
Read more2 JULY
Featured Events
2005 Pink Floyd perform "Comfortably Numb" at the Live 8 London concert, re-forming with band members Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright for the first time since 1981, when Waters left the band. It's the last time the four play together, as Wright dies in 2008.
1990 Tesla records their album Five Man Acoustical Jam live at the Trocadero Theatre in Philadelphia. Their cover of "Signs" becomes a surprise hit and catalyzes an acoustic rock trend, with MTV's Unplugged series delving into more rock acts soon after.
1988 Michael Jackson's "Dirty Diana" hits #1 on the Hot 100, making him the first artist to score five #1 singles from the same album (Bad).
1980 Sheena Easton is featured on the BBC show The Big Time, which follows regular people trying to achieve their dreams. With visions of stardom as a singer, she is seen auditioning for EMI, who are suitably impressed and sign her to a deal. Her single "9 To 5" becomes a UK hit two months later and conquers America a year later.
1966 "Strangers in the Night" goes to #1, giving Frank Sinatra his first #1 pop hit since "Learnin' The Blues" in 1955. The song appeared in the film A Man Could Get Killed, winning the Oscar for Best Song.
1962 Jimi Hendrix is honorably discharged from the Army after serving a little over a year of his 3-year commitment. The reason for his discharge is "unsuitability," as his superiors agree he will never be a good soldier, in part because he's more interested in his guitar than his rifle.More
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