25 MARCH
Featured Events
2015 Mariah Carey joins James Corden for the first installment of Carpool Karaoke.More
2003 Celine Dion begins her Las Vegas residency with the show A New Day... at Caesars Palace. With elaborate sets and a full dance troupe, it ushers in a new era of highly theatrical Vegas shows headlined by huge stars. Shania Twain, Elton John and Britney Spears all follow this path.
1997 Sixteen days after he was shot and killed, The Notorious B.I.G.'s second album, Life After Death, is released.More
1986 Guns N' Roses sign with Geffen Records, which in addition to making sure the band records an album, has to keep them alive and out of jail, which is no easy task. It pays off when Appetite For Destruction goes on to sell over 18 million copies just in America.
1972 America's first single, "A Horse With No Name," rides to #1 on the Hot 100, and the group's self-titled debut album also takes the top spot on the Albums chart. The group becomes one of the most successful acts of the decade, with subsequent hits "Sister Golden Hair," "Ventura Highway" and "Tin Man."
1967 How is the weather? Bright and sunny for The Turtles, who hit #1 in the US with "Happy Together."
1955 The movie Blackboard Jungle is released, giving new exposure to the song "Rock Around The Clock," which is featured in the film. A few months later, the song becomes the first ever #1 rock song.
1947 Elton John is born Reginald Kenneth Dwight in Pinner, Middlesex, England. His stage name, taken at age 20, comes from two members of the band Bluesology: Elton Dean and Long John Baldry.
1942 Aretha Franklin is born in Memphis, Tennessee. More
25 MARCH
In Music History
2022 Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, 50, dies in Bogotá, Colombia, while on tour with the band.
2020 It's the 15,561st day since Elvis Presley died, the exact number of days he lived, making him now dead longer than he was alive.
2018 Founding member Steven Page, who left the Barenaked Ladies nine years earlier, performs with the band at the Juno Awards, where they are honored for their induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip, who died the previous year, earns Artist of the Year.
2016 Two weeks after Major Lazer made history as the first US act to perform in Cuba since democratic relations eased between the two countries, The Rolling Stones play their first-ever Cuba gig, performing a free show for 1.2 million fans at Havana's Cuidad Deportiva. The Stones spend around $7 million to finance the trip, which follows President Obama's historic visit to the island.
2015 One Direction fans freak out when Zayn Malik announces he is leaving the group.More
2009 Dan Seals (of England Dan & John Ford Coley) dies of cancer at age 61.
2008 The Raconteurs release Consolers of the Lonely.
2007 Elton John sets the record for the most performances at New York's Madison Square Garden when he performs there for the 60th time – on his 60th birthday.
2006 Country musician Buck Owens dies of a heart attack at age 76, hours after giving his final performance at the Crystal Palace music hall in Bakersfield, California.
2004 "Suspicion," the final episode of The Chris Isaak Show - an adult comedy starring Chris Isaak - airs on Showtime.
2003 Linkin Park release Meteora, the follow-up to their smash debut, Hybrid Theory. The nu-metal album features the hit singles "Numb" and "Breaking The Habit."
2001 Bob Dylan wins the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Things Have Changed" from the movie Wonder Boys.
2001 At the Academy Awards, where she is nominated for Best Song from her movie Dancer In The Dark, Bjork wears a swan dress complete with a purse that looks like an egg, which she "lays" on the red carpet. Such bold fashion would not be seen again until Lady Gaga's emergence.
2000 The Razzies aren't done with Madonna yet. After saddling her with three prizes for Worst Actress (Shanghai Surprise, Who's That Girl, Body of Evidence) and one for Worst Supporting Actress (Four Rooms) throughout her film career, the Golden Raspberry Awards names her Worst Actress of the Century. Will Smith is also a star of the evening at the 20th annual ceremony, where he wins Worst Original Song for "Wild Wild West." The movie of the same name (which he also starred in) is named Worst Picture.
1997 Kenny Moore, a songwriter who was Tina Turner's musical director, dies of apoplexy at age 45.
Deep Purple Release Machine Head, With "Smoke On The Water"
1972Deep Purple's album Machine Head is released in America. Most of it was recorded in their hotel after the Montreux Casino, where they planned to record it, burned down, a story told in the song "Smoke On The Water."
Known for their exhilarating live performances, Deep Purple set out for Switzerland with the idea of using the Montreux Casino as a studio to capture their concert sound. When the casino burns down the day after they arrive, they're forced to improvise. They set up shop at a dance club called the Pavilion, which used to be an ice skating rink, and record a track at what is essentially a sound check. The next day, they're forced out when locals complain about the noise, so they move to Plan C: recording out of the Grand Hotel, where they're staying. They improvise, using mattresses to dampen the sound and spreading out in different rooms - guitarist Ritchie Blackmore could be playing in the hallway while drummer Ian Paice is banging away in one room and organist Jon Lord playing in another. It's all recorded in the mobile unit (a truck with a 16-track recording studio inside) parked on the street. The unorthodox and highly improvised sessions spin gold, with the band capturing the sound they were going for when they came to Montreux. On the last day of recording, they hit another hitch: they're one song short. To fill up the album, they dig out the track they recorded at the Pavilion and add a vocal describing their ordeal: We all came out to Montreux On the Lake Geneva shoreline To make records with a mobile We didn't have much time That song becomes "Smoke On The Water," which is begrudgingly added to the album. Led by the singles "Never Before" and "Highway Star," the album takes off in their native UK, going to #1 on May 6. In America, it makes just a modest impact until "Smoke On The Water," which has been killing at concerts, is released as a single in May 1973, more than a year after the album appeared. Machine Head becomes a hard rock milestone, something Blackmore attributes to its unusual origins. "I think that setup led to capturing some spontaneity," he tells Guitar World. "Because once we got to the truck for a playback, even if we didn't think it was a perfect take, we'd go, 'Yeah, that's good enough.'"
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