21 MAY
In Music History
1983 David Bowie's "Let's Dance" hits #1 on the US chart.
1983 "Little Red Corvette" goes to #6 in the US, giving Prince his first Top 10 hit on the Hot 100. The video is one of the first by a black artist to go in hot rotation on MTV.
1981 Reggae star Bob Marley is buried with state honors in St. Ann's, Jamaica.
1979 Time magazine runs a story on Rickie Lee Jones titled "The Duchess of Coolsville," a reference to the song "Coolsville" on her debut album. The moniker sticks.
1979 Elton John becomes the first western act to tour the U.S.S.R. when he plays the first of eight concerts at a show in Leningrad.
1977 Stevie Wonder hits #1 in America with "Sir Duke," a tribute to Duke Ellington, who died in 1974.
1976 Blue Öyster Cult release their most popular album, Agents Of Fortune. Thanks to "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," it sells over a million copies in America.
1975 After a show in Knoxville, Tennessee, Alice Cooper leaves one of his stage props, a 13-foot boa constrictor, in the hotel bathroom, where it escapes down the toilet. The snake shows up two weeks later in a room occupied by country singer Charley Pride; Cooper learns to put the lid down.
1972 The Notorious B.I.G. is born Christopher George Latore Wallace in Brooklyn, New York.
1970 At the Record Plant in Los Angeles, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young record "Ohio," a song Neil Young wrote about the Kent State Shootings from two weeks earlier.
1964 The Drifters record "Under The Boardwalk" the day after their lead singer, Rudy Lewis, is found dead. He is replaced by former member Johnny Moore.
1962 Dee Dee Sharp records "Gravy (For My Mashed Potatoes)."
1957 Paul Anka records "Diana."
1955 Chuck Berry records his first single, "Maybellene," at Chess Records in Chicago.
1955 Stan Lynch (original drummer for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers) is born in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Rock And Roll Is Here To Stay
1965Ten years into the Rock Era, it looks like it's here to stay. Time magazine reports on the rock revival with the cover story, "Rock 'n' Roll: The Sound of the Sixties."
Read more21 MAY
Featured Events
2016 Following the release of his album Views, Drake places a record 20 songs on the Hot 100, besting Justin Bieber's mark of 17 on December 5, 2015.
1994 R&B vocal group All-4-One hits #1 on the Hot 100 with "I Swear," a cover of a country song by John Michael Montgomery. The group is playing gigs at Disneyland when the song tops the chart; it stays at #1 for 11 weeks.More
1992 Bette Midler is Johnny Carson's last guest on The Tonight Show (his final show, the following night, has no guests). She serenades him with "One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)."
1992 MTV airs the first episode of The Real World, which gets huge ratings and begins a shift in programming away from music videos. It also encourages other networks to try this "Reality TV" thing.
1986 Run-DMC, LL Cool J and Whodini kick off the Raising Hell tour with a show in Columbus, Georgia. All three acts are from New York City; the tour, which stops in places like Saginaw, Michigan, and Jacksonville, Florida, affirms that rap is finding a much wider audience.
1983 ZZ Top release their video for "Gimme All Your Lovin'," marking the first appearance of the Eliminator, Billy Gibbons' 1933 Ford Hot Rod. The car appears in three other ZZ Top videos and becomes closely associated with the band. Gibbons has another one built just like it to bring on tour.More
1977 Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album takes over the #1 spot in the US from the Eagles' Hotel California.
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