4 JULY
Featured Events
1999 Victoria Adams, better known as Posh Spice of The Spice Girls, marries the soccer star David Beckham. The photogenic couple draw lots of press coverage and become known as "Posh and Becks."
1992 The king of all booty songs, Sir Mix-A-Lot's Baby Got Back," hits #1 in America.More
1987 John Fogerty headlines a Vietnam veterans' benefit concert at the Capital Center in Landover, Maryland broadcast by HBO. Performers include Neil Diamond, Stevie Wonder and Kris Kristofferson.More
1982 Ozzy Osbourne and his manager, Sharon Arden, get married. She is the daughter of music mogul Don Arden, and a keen businesswoman. The union results in an MTV reality show, Ozzfest, and three children: Aimee, Kelly and Jack.
1982 Neil Diamond sees the movie E.T. along with the songwriters Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager. That night, they write the song "Heartlight" based on the film.
1970 Casey Kasem debuts the radio show American Top 40, where he counts down the Billboard hits (the #1 song: "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)" by Three Dog Night). He hosts the show until 2004, when Ryan Seacrest takes over.More
1964 The Beach Boys score their first #1 hit as "I Get Around" tops the Hot 100, where it stays for two weeks.
4 JULY
In Music History
2023 At his show in Las Vegas, Usher cozies up to the actress Keke Palmer while singing "There Goes My Baby." It blows up on social media and causes a rift with her boyfriend, Darius Jackson. In August, Palmer stars in Usher's video for "Boyfriend," poking fun at the controversy.
2020 On Twitter, Kanye West announces he's running for president. He forms his own political party, the "Birthday Party," telling supporters, "When we win, it's everybody's birthday."
2015 Ariana Grande licks some donuts on a display counter at Wolfee Donuts in Lake Elsinore, California.More
2014 Sia, the hit songwriter behind Rihanna's "Diamonds" and David Guetta's "Titanium," releases her album 1000 Forms Of Fear, which goes to #1 in America. For a "layer of protection," she wears a wig that covers her face while promoting the album and doesn't appear in the videos for the singles "Chandelier" and "Elastic Heart," which instead feature interpretive dancing by Maddie Ziegler.
2014 The first Beatles movie, A Hard Day's Night, is re-released in American theaters to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
2013 Jay-Z releases his twelfth studio album, Magna Carta... Holy Grail, as a free download, but only for Samsung customers who can access it through the Jay-Z Magna Carta app. Non-Samsung users will have to tough it out and buy the album at retail price four days later.
2010 After attending a gay pride parade in London, George Michael crashes his Range Rover into a Snappy Snaps photo store in Hampstead, England. Convicted of driving under the influence of cannabis, he goes to prison on September 21 and serves four weeks.
2009 Drake Levin (guitarist for Paul Revere and the Raiders) dies of cancer at age 62.
2009 Allen Klein, an influential music publisher who simultaneously managed The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, dies of respiratory failure at age 77 after years of diabetes-related complications and an Alzheimer's diagnosis.
2007 Bill Pinkney (of The Drifters) dies of a heart attack at age 81.
2005 Rockabilly entertainer "Big" Al Downing dies of leukemia at age 65.
2003 Barry White, age 58, dies two months after suffering a severe stroke while awaiting a kidney transplant.
2002 Michael Abram, the man who attacked and nearly murdered George Harrison some 19 months earlier, is given a conditional release by a Mental Health Review Tribunal, to the fury of George's widow, Olivia. Says Abram: "If I could turn back the clock I would give anything not to have done what I did. But I have come to realise that I was very ill at that time, really not in control."
1995 Foo Fighters release their self-titled debut album. It's essentially a Dave Grohl solo project - he wrote, produced, and played all the instruments except for some guitar on "X-Static" by Greg Dulli.
1995 Post Malone is born Austin Richard Post in Syracuse, New York. Raised in Grapevine, Texas, from age 9, he's living in Los Angeles when his song "White Iverson" takes off on SoundCloud in 2015 and launches him to stardom.
Abba Reunite for Mamma Mia! Film Premiere
2008The movie Mamma Mia!, featuring the music of ABBA and based on the musical, opens in Sweden where the group attends the screening, briefly reuniting Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, and Agnetha Faltskog.
Phyllida Lloyd, who directed the original Broadway production of Mamma Mia! is also at the helm for the film adaptation. The jukebox musical, named after Abba's 1975 chart-topper, uses the group's songs to tell the story of a bride-to-be (Amanda Seyfried) who tries to track down her biological father before her wedding day. She invites three potential dads - played by Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skarsgard - to the ceremony on the Greek Islands ("I Have A Dream"), relying on her daughterly intuition to determine her real father ("Honey, Honey"). Meanwhile, the mother of the bride, played by Meryl Streep, is overwhelmed when she uncovers her daughter's plan ("Mamma Mia"). All of the cast members do their own singing, including the hits "Dancing Queen," "S.O.S.,""The Winner Takes It All," and "Waterloo." British theater producer Judy Craymer got the idea for an Abba-themed musical when she met Ulvaeus and Andersson, who were working as songwriters on another project, and was struck by the theatricality of "The Winner Takes It All." She enlisted playwright Catherine Johnson, who also penned the screenplay for the film, to write the book for the musical. The production debuted on Broadway at New York City's Winter Garden Theatre on October 18, 2001, two years after its debut on London's West End. It also whet the audience's appetite for Swedish retro pop music, sending the compilation album Abba Gold to the top of the UK charts.
Categories
©2024 Songfacts®, LLC
Comments
send your comment