7 MAY
Featured Events
2016 Following his unexpected death, Prince takes the top two spots on the Billboard albums chart with The Very Best of Prince at #1 and Purple Rain at #2. With his music unavailable on most streaming services and download distributors, physical albums are in many cases the best way to get his music.
1998 Steve Perry officially leaves Journey, honoring an agreement made with Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain that they would reform the band without him if he was not able to tour. He is replaced with the similar-sounding Steve Augeri.
1992 John Frusciante quits the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the middle of their Japanese tour.More
1978 Goaded by an item in the magazine saying they are "more interested in finding a softball team they can beat," the Eagles take on Rolling Stone in a game the rock band wins 15-8 (Don Henley is the winning pitcher). In the crowd cheering on the Eagles are Joni Mitchell and Chevy Chase.
1968 On a plane ride returning home from his last gig with the band Bluesology, keyboard player Reginald Dwight looks for a stage name he can use for his burgeoning solo career. In the cabin, he comes across the band's horn player Elton Dean and lead singer Long John Baldry, and asks them if he can appropriate their names to concoct a new one for himself. They agree, and Elton John is born.
1966 "Monday Monday" by The Mamas & the Papas goes to #1 on the Hot 100, becoming the first song with a day of the week in the title to top the chart.
7 MAY
In Music History
2022 Mickey Gilley dies at 86. He had 39 Top 10 Country hits and owned a bar in Dallas called Gilley's that was known as "the world's biggest honky-tonk."
2016 After completing a tour with Guns N' Roses, Axl Rose takes over as lead singer for AC/DC, filling in for Brian Johnson at a show in Lisbon after Johnson is told that continuing the tour could result in permanent hearing loss. Rose fills in on the remaining dates as a guest vocalist.
2012 Jake Owen marries the 22-year-old model Lacey Buchanan. The pair met when she appeared in Owen's video for "Eight Second Ride."
2011 Lady Gaga's HBO concert special airs. The show is made up of two February concerts from Madison Square Garden on her Monster Ball tour. Those who remember Madonna's Truth or Dare notice a lot of similarities.
2011 '60s pop singer John Walker (of The Walker Brothers) dies of liver disease at age 67.
2008 The Jammys Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded to Phish. The ceremony takes place in The Theater at Madison Square Garden.
2008 A number of British tabloids, including The Sun and The Daily Mail, blame the "emo suicide cult" for the death of 13-year-old Hannah Bond. My Chemical Romance take the brunt of their ire for allegedly glamorizing death on albums like The Black Parade, which was a #2 hit in both the US and UK. MCR, who insist they never encourage self-harm, respond by leading their fans in chants of "F--k the Daily Mail!"
2007 The first and only Hottest Chicks In Metal Tour kicks off in Louisville. All the bands on the tour are fronted by women: Lacuna Coil (Cristina Scabbia), Within Temptation (Sharon den Adel), In This Moment (Maria Brink), The Gathering (Anneke van Giersbergen) and Stolen Babies (Dominique Lenore Persi).
2007 Sammy Hagar sells an 80% stake in his Cabo Wabo tequila company to Gruppo Campari for $80 million.More
2005 This s--t is bananas: Gwen Stefani hits #1 in America with "Hollaback Girl."
2005 System Of A Down perform their raging Iraq War protest song "B.Y.O.B." on Saturday Night Live with the network using a 5-second delay to mute their vocals every time they say "f--k."
2005 Giacomo, owned by A&M Records founder Jerry Moss, wins the Kentucky Derby at 50-to-1 odds.
2002 Tom Waits releases the albums Blood Money and Alice on the same day. Blood Money contains songs used for a Robert Wilson production of the unfinished play Woyzeck by German playwright Georg Büchner, while Alice contains mostly songs written for Wilson's adaptation of a play also named Alice. They're his 13th and 14th studio albums.
2002 The Rolling Stones make a big entrance, arriving by blimp to announce their Licks tour in New York's Van Cortland Park.
2002 Carole King guests on the WB Network's TV show Gilmore Girls (for which she also sings the opening song).
"Hotel California" Checks In At #1
1977Running 6:08 and loaded with metaphor and guitars, "Hotel California" tops the Hot 100.
One of the most enduring and enigmatic rock songs, "Hotel California" tells the story of a man who goes on a mysterious journey to a place where you can check in, but you can never leave. As the center of the film and music industries, California has a certain mythology, making it the perfect setting for the song. If you grew up there, it feels natural, but to an outsider, it's a different planet. The musical foundation came from Don Felder, one of three guitarists in the group, who supplied the track on a demo cassette he recorded. Don Henley wrote the lyric with help from Glenn Frey. All are outsiders: Henley is from Texas, Frey from Michigan, and Felder from Florida. When they went west, they discovered a world of possibility tarnished with a superficial indulgence. The story doesn't follow a linear path, relying instead on a series of images, leaving the listener to craft the narrative. Those images are sensory: a warm smell of colitas (a desert plant), a shimmering light, pink champagne on ice. Some of them have a backstory. The "steely knives" are a nod to Steely Dan, whose 1976 song "Everything You Did" has the line, "Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening." Henley says this journey is from "innocence to experience," with a look at how art and commerce intertwine. "The Hotel California is something that was elegant and now is decadent," he says. "Decadent" is a good word to describe reaction to the song. It goes to #1 in America and helps the album sell over 30 million copies worldwide, banishing the band's image of laid-back country rockers. Radio stations in Pop, Rock and Adult Contemporary formats play it religiously. It never fades away, remaining a Classic Rock touchstone. Its success gives the band everything they wanted when they came to Hollywood. Fame, fortune, and #1 albums were already checked off the list (their previous studio album One of These Nights went to #1, as did their 1976 compilation Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975)), but now they have critical acclaim (including from the curmudgeonly British music press) and respect from their musical peers. Don Henley also has an ulcer from the extreme workload, as the album was recorded between tour stops at a relentless pace. At the Grammy Awards, where millionaire musicians are rewarded with gilded trophies in a glittering Los Angeles auditorium, "Hotel California" wins for Record of the Year. The Eagles watch the ceremony on TV from their rehearsal space, where they're working on their next album, The Long Run.
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