1989 De La Soul's debut album, 3 Feet High and Rising, peaks at #24 on the Billboard 200 chart. On the same day, "Me, Myself and I" hits #1 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart.
1988 Steve Sanders (baritone singer, guitarist for The Oak Ridge Boys) dies of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at age 45.
1986 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band celebrates its 20th anniversary with a concert in their hometown of Denver, Colorado.
1982 R&B singer Addie "Micki" Harris (of The Shirelles) dies at age 42 after suffering a heart attack during a performance in Atlanta, Georgia.
1978 John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John's Grease duet "You're The One That I Want" hits #1 in the US.
1978 R&B singer LeMisha Grinstead (of 702) is born in Las Vegas, Nevada.
1975 The Eagles release their fourth album, One Of These Nights. It includes "Take It to the Limit," one of the few Eagles songs with a lead vocal by Randy Meisner.
1973 R&B singer Faith Evans is born in Lakeland, Florida.
1972 Sammy Davis, Jr.'s "The Candy Man" hits #1 in America.
1971 Elvis Presley records "My Way," and "I'll Be Home On Christmas Day."
1971 Joel "Jo-Jo" Hailey (of K-Ci & JoJo) is born in Monroe, North Carolina.
1971 Police fire tear gas into the rowdy crowd at the Jethro Tull concert in Denver, but the band continues playing even though some of them have trouble seeing their instruments.
1970 Earl Grant, a pop singer known for hits like "Ebb Tide" throughout the '50s and '60s, dies in a car accident in Lordsburg, New Mexico, at age 39.
1969 With his father Jerry Lewis as guest host, Gary Lewis performs "This Diamond Ring" on The Tonight Show with his band Gary Lewis and the Playboys.
1967 The Monkees record "Pleasant Valley Sunday."
In the last scene of the HBO series The Sopranos, "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey plays on the jukebox while Tony Soprano sits at a diner. It cuts to black on the line, "Don't Stop."
Read more2004 Ray Charles dies at age 73 of liver disease.More
2003 The Luther Vandross album Dance With My Father is released two months after the singer suffered a debilitating stroke. The album goes to #1 in America and the title track wins the Grammy Award for Song of the Year, but Vandross dies on July 1, 2005.
2000 Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP, featuring "Stan" and "The Real Slim Shady," begins an eight-week run at #1 in the US.
1991 In his first public appearance since being released from prison in February, James Brown stars in the pay-per-view concert special James Brown: Living in America. For $19.95, viewers can see Brown perform at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles along with MC Hammer, Bell Biv DeVoe, C+C Music Factory, Kool Moe Dee and En Vogue.
1990 Members of the rap group 2 Live Crew are arrested on charges of public obscenity after performing songs from their album As Nasty As They Wanna Be in a Hollywood, Florida, nightclub. A few days earlier, a federal court ruled the album obscene, and therefore performing it is against the law. It gets even more ridiculous when a cover band performs the songs for the purpose of getting arrested, which they do. Eventually, the ruling is overturned and charges against the rappers (and cover band) are dropped.
1976 Paul McCartney and Wings set a new indoor concert attendance record of 67,100 at the newly-opened Kingdome in Seattle.
1922 Judy Garland is born Frances Ethel Gumm in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. A few years later, her family moves to California and she becomes a child star, playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz when she's 17.
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