14 MAY
Featured Events
2016 Following the release of Beyoncé's Lemonade, all 12 tracks on the album debut on the Hot 100, breaking Taylor Swift's 2010 record for most songs on the chart at the same time by a female artist.More
2015 B.B. King dies at age 89. Bonnie Raitt says, "Without a doubt, B.B. King has influenced more rock and blues musicians than anyone else in history."
2011 Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert get married, forming a country music power couple to rival the Tim McGraw/Faith Hill union. They divorce four years later.
1998 Frank Sinatra dies of a heart attack in West Hollywood, California, at age 82.
1988 Atlantic Records' 40th Anniversary celebration takes place at New York's Madison Square Garden, featuring appearances from many famous artists on the label's roster: The Bee Gees, Wilson Pickett, The Rascals, The Coasters, Emerson, Lake And Palmer, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Foreigner, Yes, Genesis, and the event's main attraction, a rare reunion of Led Zeppelin, with John Bonham's son Jason taking over drums for his late father.
1985 Ronald Reagan presents Michael Jackson with a special Presidential Humanitarian Award at the White House for his work against drunk driving. Footage of the ceremony is shown repeatedly when Jackson comes into legal trouble in the following years.
1955 Les Baxter's "Unchained Melody" hits #1 in America, the first of many renditions of the song to chart. The most enduring version is by The Righteous Brothers, which goes to #4 in 1965 and then to #13 in 1990 after featuring in the movie Ghost.
1936 Bobby Darin is born Walden Robert Cassotto in East Harlem, New York City. Teenage Nina Cassotto became pregnant out of wedlock and, to avoid scandal, had her mother raise the baby as her own while Nina passed him off as her younger brother. Bobby finds out years later that the woman he knew as his beloved mother was actually his grandmother.
14 MAY
In Music History
2020 Keith Urban becomes the first major artist to play a drive-in concert in America during the coronavirus pandemic, performing to an audience of health care workers at the Stardust Drive-In in Watertown, Tennessee.More
2017 Johnny Mathis confirms he is gay during an interview with CBS News Sunday Morning, saying, "I come from San Francisco. It's not unusual to be gay in San Francisco. I've had some girlfriends, some boyfriends, just like most people. But I never got married, for instance. I knew that I was gay." He had been reluctant to discuss the issue ever since a 1982 Us Magazine article addressing his homosexuality resulted in numerous death threats toward the singer.
2014 Cubie Burke (singer and dancer of the Chicago soul group The Five Stairsteps) dies of complications from a brain injury at age 49.
2006 Geri Halliwell of the Spice Girls has a daughter, Bluebell Madonna Halliwell. The father is her boyfriend Sacha Gervasi.
2006 Ashton "Family Man" Barrett, former bassist with Bob Marley's Wailers, loses a lawsuit alleging that Island Records and Marley's estate have failed to pay him millions in royalties.
2005 Bluegrass musician Jimmy Martin dies of bladder cancer at age 77 in Nashville, Tennessee.
2005 Bruce Springsteen lands his fifth US #1 album as Devils & Dust claims the top spot.
2004 Chris Martin of Coldplay and his wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, have a daughter they name Apple.
2002 Rush release Vapor Trails, their 17th studio album and first since the deaths of Neil Peart's daughter and wife five years prior.
2001 After a six-season run, the last episode of Brandy's TV series Moesha airs. This final episode is a cliffhanger, with Moesha learning she is pregnant and her brother getting kidnapped.
1998 George Michael pleads no contest in Beverly Hills Municipal Court to committing a lewd act in a park restroom.
1993 The US tabloid Weekly World News claims that Elvis Presley has only recently died.
1991 Primus' major label debut (and eventual commercial breakthrough), Sailing the Seas of Cheese, is released. The album spawns the alt-rock classics "Jerry Was a Race Car Driver," "Tommy the Cat," and "Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers."
1991 Six months after releasing "Unbelievable" in their native UK, EMF release the single in the Unites States, where it goes to #1.
Chainsmokers Take Selfies On American Idol
2014On American Idol, The Chainsmokers perform their hit "#Selfie" in a bit where they take selfies with the judges. After the performance, EDM notables trash them.
It's the first national TV appearance for The Chainsmokers, who oblige by acting goofy and encouraging the crowd to take selfies (#IdolSelfie). Even by Idol standards, the "performance" is ludicrous and blatantly promotional. There are turntables set up, but they don't use them - instead they take selfies with Jennifer Lopez and a clearly uncomfortable Harry Connick Jr.. The exposure is huge, but it comes at a cost, as the EDM community loathes everything about the show. Deadmau5, a favorite of Andrew Taggart and Alex Pall of Chainsmokers, blasts them on Twitter: The only thing @TheChainsmokers and pop EDM have in common is probably cancer. Knife Party adds: Ladies n gentlemen, this is what happens if you don't say "no" to your management The duo immediately regret the decision ("That was the worst career move," Taggart says), but it doesn't slow them down. Despite the backlash, they become a top production act just two years later, with breakthrough hits "Don't Let Me Down" and "Closer." They're so big, they don't even have to play "#Selfie" anymore at their shows, leaving it in the archives as a goofy tune that jump-started their career. As for Deadmau5, Taggart says in Rolling Stone, "I fell out of love with his music. Now his brand is less about his music and more about his personality, which is being a dick."
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