31 March

Pick a Day

31 MARCH

In Music History

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2017 The coming-of-age drama 13 Reasons Why drops on Netflix with a song called "The Night We Met" captivating viewers in the fifth episode. The song, released two years earlier by a little-known band called Lord Huron, goes viral and reappears in season 2 as a remix with Phoebe Bridgers.

2015 British jazz pianist Ralph Sharon, who brought "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" to Tony Bennett, dies in Boulder, Colorado, at age 91.

2009 Lynyrd Skynyrd release Live at the Cardiff Capitol Theatre. It features music recorded at Cardiff, Wales' Capitol Theatre on November 4, 1975. It's released alongside the album Authorized Bootleg: Live In Winterland, San Francisco, CA, 3/07/76.

2007 Police issue arrest warrants for Country singer Billy Joe Shaver after he shoots and wounds a man outside a Lorena, Texas, bar. Shaver later turns himself in.

2003 The Roots release Phrenology three years after their highly successful fourth album, Things Fall Apart. An ambitious work that pushes the boundaries of hip-hop, Phrenology also contains a hit: the Cody ChesnuTT collaboration "The Seed (2.0)."

2001 Acker Bilk receives an MBE (Member of the British Empire) medal from Queen Elizabeth for services to the music industry.

1999 The Matrix opens in theaters with a soundtrack featuring Marilyn Manson, Ministry, The Prodigy and Rob Zombie. It establishes industrial music as the sound of simulation theory.

1996 After battling a number of health issues, Gun Club guitarist Jeffrey Lee Pierce dies at age 37.

1995 23-year-old Lance Cunningham injures four people at a Jimmy Page/Robert Plant concert in Auburn Hills, Michigan, when he tries to rush the stage with a pocketknife. Cunningham claims he was trying to attack Page, accusing him of being "Satanic."

1993 Mitchell Parish, who wrote lyrics for the songs "Deep Purple" and "Stardust," dies at 92.

1992 After the sudden split of The Judds - a hit country duo she formed with her mom, Naomi - Wynonna Judd kicks off her solo career with a self-titled album that helps country crossover to the mainstream thanks to the hit single "No One Else On Earth."More

1987 Georg Listing (bassist for Tokio Hotel) is born in Halle, Germany.

1986 O'Kelly Isley (of The Isley Brothers) dies of a heart attack at age 48 in Alpine, New Jersey.

1985 The first WrestleMania goes down at Madison Square Garden, with Liberace as timekeeper and Cyndi Lauper managing the wrestler Wendi Richter, who wins the Women's Championship with Lauper's help.

1984 Jack Antonoff, producer of hits for Taylor Swift, Lorde and Lana Del Rey, is born in Bergenfield, New Jersey.

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Jimi Hendrix Sets Guitar On Fire

1967

At the Astoria Theatre in London, Jimi Hendrix sets fire to his guitar for the first time, and goes to the hospital after the show with minor burns. During the rest of the tour, Hendrix makes a habit of playing his guitar with his teeth, and he ignites his axe a few more times.


Despite Hendrix's reputation for destroying instruments during his performances, the audience can hardly be expecting such an inflammatory incident: The Jimi Hendrix Experience are at the bottom of the bill, opening up for three much tamer acts: The Walker Brothers, Cat Stevens and crooner Engelbert Humperdinck. As the band perform their new song "Fire," Hendrix throws down his guitar onto the stage, creating an inferno of feedback. With the audience suitably distracted, band manager Chas Chandler covers the instrument with lighter fluid (which was dutifully purchased from the local store by a roadie earlier that day). Hendrix then strikes a series of matches until the Stratocaster is eventually engulfed in four-foot flames. In the heat of the moment, Hendrix fails to realize that he has burned his hands, and after the blaze is extinguished, he completes the song using another guitar. After the show, he attends the local hospital for the treatment of minor burns. The stunt was suggested by rock journalist Keith Altham, and it certainly fuels media coverage of the hot young star. The burning of a guitar becomes the centerpiece of many Experience shows from that point forward, most notably at Monterey later in the year where the stunt is caught on film. In 2008, the charred remains of the Fender Stratocaster that was ignited in the Astoria show are auctioned, raising over half a million dollars.

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