17 MARCH
Featured Events
2010 Big Star lead singer Alex Chilton dies of a heart attack at age 59. Three days later, the group's scheduled performance at SXSW is turned into a tribute to Chilton.
2008 Heather Mills is awarded 23.7 million pounds (about $47 million) in her divorce from Paul McCartney, substantially more than the $32 million Paul offered. Throughout the ordeal, Mills is vilified in the British press as being opportunistic.More
2003 On the very first episode of MTV's practical joke show Punk'd, host Ashton Kutcher stages a prank involving the IRS that makes Justin Timberlake cry.More
1992 After reuniting at their ex-manager's funeral, Spinal Tap issue their 17th album, Break Like The Wind.More
1987 Reacting to a Beastie Boys concert three weeks earlier where the group used a giant inflatable penis as a stage prop and encouraged girls in the crowd to bare their breasts, the city of Columbus, Georgia passes an anti-lewdness law prohibiting nudity, simulated sex, and objectionable language at any show attended by minors.More
1968 Mick Jagger joins a demonstration at Grosvenor Square in London to protest the Vietnam War. When the group, estimated at 25,000, marches to the American embassy, they are met with police resistance and rioting ensues. Jagger leaves the protest before it reaches the embassy, but uses the events as inspiration for the Rolling Stones song "Street Fighting Man."
1958 "Tequila" by The Champs hits #1 in America, becoming one of the most popular saxophone instrumentals of all time.More
1958 The first "Greatest Hits" compilation is released, and it's by Johnny Mathis. It's a huge hit, and the format catches on quickly. The Mathis album stays in the Billboard 200 album chart for over nine years, a record not broken until Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon.More
17 MARCH
In Music History
2023 Taylor Swift launches her Eras tour in Glendale, Arizona. The three-hour show is divided into 10 acts dedicated to the music and looks of each of her previous albums. It's her first trek since her Reputation Tour five years and four albums earlier.
2020 A federal judge rules in favor of Katy Perry, overturning a verdict that her song "Dark Horse" infringed on the song "Joyful Noise" by Flame. The jury had ordered $2.78 million in damages.
2020 With St. Patrick's Day festivities shut down due to the coronavirus, Dropkick Murphys livestream a free concert from an empty venue in Boston. Over the next few weeks, many other artists follow suit, using livestreaming as a way to perform for fans during lockdown.More
2018 At their St. Patrick's Day concert in Brussels, The Script buy everyone in the audience of 8,000 a drink, setting a Guinness World Record for "world's biggest round."
2017 Popular World War II-era singer Vera Lynn releases Vera Lynn 100 to celebrate her 100th birthday. The album debuts at #3 on the UK chart, making her the oldest living artist to have an album on the tally.
2016 Prince's ex-wife Mayte Garcia puts a collection of his memorabilia up for auction.More
2012 After getting pelted with cans and other trash at their SXSW performance, Rocky and the rest of A$AP Mob launch into the crowd, punching fans and igniting a brawl.
2011 Ferlin Husky dies of congestive heart failure at age 85.
2009 Instead of getting boozed up on the streets like most people on St. Patrick's Day, Amy Winehouse gets sloppy at her court hearing in London to face charges that she attacked a fan at a charity event in 2008.
2009 Chicago blues harmonicist Lester "Mad Dog" Davenport dies of prostate cancer at age 77.
2009 Belinda Carlisle is the first person eliminated on Season 8 of Dancing With The Stars.
2006 Professor X (founder of the hip-hop group X Clan) dies of complications from spinal meningitis at age 49.
2005 Robert Plant is presented with his lifetime achievement Grammy award at SXSW in Austin, Texas.
2003 Country musician Bill Carlisle dies at age 94.
2003 Cliff – The Musical opens at The Prince of Wales Theatre in London. The show, which is based on the life of Cliff Richard, closes three months later.
Film Flop Splits Songwriting Duo
1973The sci-fi musical Lost Horizon, scored by Burt Bacharach, bombs at the box office. The failure precipitates Bacharach's split from longtime songwriting partner Hal David and Dionne Warwick, who had performed their songs for more than a decade.
Lost Horizon, starring Peter Finch and Liv Ullman, is a musical take on Frank Capra's 1937 film about a group of plane crash survivors who discover a utopian city. Bacharach and David, who started their fruitful partnership in the late '50s writing hits for Gene Pitney and Perry Como, wrote the songs together, including the title track. While "Lost Horizon" the song was a minor hit (#63), sung by Shawn Phillips, Lost Horizon the movie was a disaster. The kindest review came from The New York Times, which called the film "a big, stale marshmallow." Bacharach kind of saw it coming, at least from a musical standpoint. He disapproved of how the music was being handled and let everyone know it, causing him to be banned from the dubbing studios. The composer turned his ire on his songwriting partner, who wasn't as vocal about the situation and left Bacharach feeling unsupported. Bacharach, who arranged and produced all of the music, demanded he get a bigger share of the royalties; David refused, and their professional relationship ended on the spot. To make matters worse, Bacharach reneged on a deal to produce a new album for Dionne Warwick, inciting a lawsuit with both the singer and the lyricist. Bacharach, who already had troubles at home with his marriage to Angie Dickinson, nearly left music behind for good. He recalled in his autobiography Anyone Who Had A Heart: My Life and Music: "After Lost Horizon opened, I got into my car, went down to our house by the beach and disappeared. I disappeared from Hal, I disappeared from Dionne and I disappeared from my marriage." Bacharach bounced back. That same year, he released the album Living Together, which included several tunes from Lost Horizon. He even patched things up with both David and Dionne – eventually. Dionne (& Friends) had huge success with the Bacharach/Carole Bayer Sager tune "That's What Friends Are For" in 1986. In 1993, he and David also penned the song "Sunny Weather Lover" for the singer. It wasn't enough for a permanent reunion, though they collaborated again in 2010 to write "You've Got It All Wrong" for the revival of the musical Promises, Promises. Despite the dissolution of their partnership after Lost Horizon, David insisted, "We really remained good friends all the way through."
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