2006 With the aid of a private jet, Jay-Z plays seven 30-minute sets across the US in one day to promote his comeback album, Kingdom Come.
2003 John Lennon's original, handwritten lyrics to "Nowhere Man" are auctioned at Christie's for $455,000.
2003 Acting on the sexual abuse allegations of a 12-year-old boy who had visited the home, approximately 70 members of California's Santa Barbara County sheriff's and district attorney's offices raid Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch. The singer is in Vegas filming a video at the time.
1995 The last Queen album, Made In Heaven, debuts at #1 in the UK. Most of the album was recorded shortly before lead singer Freddie Mercury's 1991 death.
1994 The Rolling Stones become the first major act to stream a live concert on the Internet, webcasting 20 minutes of their show at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, Texas. It's really for publicity to promote their upcoming pay-per-view concert, as very few computers can receive the webcast.
1993 Nirvana records an MTV Unplugged concert in New York. The show is shot in one take - imperfections and all - and is aired one month later.More
1987 Sony reaches an agreement to buy CBS Records, which includes Columbia, Portrait and Epic, for $2 billion. Artists on these labels include Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, and Bruce Springsteen (putting Born In The U.S.A. in the hands of a Japanese company).
1985 LL Cool J releases his debut album, Radio, the first album ever issued on Def Jam Records. It goes Platinum and makes LL the first solo act on par with reigning rap kings Run-D.M.C.
1968 A group called Pogo, which includes Randy Meisner, Jim Messina and Richie Furay, debuts at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. They change their name to Poco to avoid legal action over the comic strip Pogo.
2017 AC/DC founder and guitarist Malcolm Young dies at age 64 after suffering from dementia for the last three years of his life.
2016 Sharon Jones of Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings dies at age 60 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
2016 Metallica issue their 10th album, Hardwired... To Self-Destruct.
2014 Dave Appell, a session guitarist and arranger who produced hits for Tony Orlando & Dawn, dies at age 92.
2012 At the 2012 American Music Awards (the 40th anniversary of the event), Justin Bieber wins Artist of the Year.
2008 American Idol winner David Cook releases his self-titled debut album.
2004 Cy Coleman, composer, songwriter, and pianist, dies of a cardiac arrest at age 75. With Carolyn Leigh, wrote pop hits like "Witchcraft" and "The Best Is Yet To Come," both popularized by Frank Sinatra.
2003 Composer, songwriter Michael Kamen dies of a suspected heart attack in London, England, at age 55. Known for his innovative arrangements in pop music ("Here Comes the Rain Again") and film scores and songs (with Bryan Adams: "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You," "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?").
2003 Blink-182, the pop-punk purveyors of gross puns with album titles like Enema Of The State and Take Off Your Pants And Jacket, prove they're all grown up when they choose to leave their fifth album, an experimental art project, untitled.More
2002 Shania Twain issues her fourth album, Up!. It's her last album produced by her husband Mutt Lange, as the couple divorce in 2010. Up! sells an astounding 11 million copies in America, which is still only half the tally of her previous album, Come On Over.
2002 Bill Wyman, former Rolling Stones bassist, sends a cease-and-desist letter to a writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution bearing the same name, which the writer was born under in 1961, on grounds that it violates the copyright of the bassist Wyman, who legally took the name at age 28 in 1964. No lawsuit is ever filed.
2002 The posthumous George Harrison album Brainwashed is released, his first since Cloud Nine in 1987. Harrison had been working on the album before his death; it was completed by his son Dhani.
1999 Doug Sahm (frontman for Sir Douglas Quintet) dies of a heart attack in Taos, New Mexico, at age 58.
1997 AC/DC release their Bon Scott tribute compilation Bonfire.
1997 In Bristol, England, Gary Glitter is detained and questioned by police after a computer store repairing the glam star's computer finds it loaded with child pornography.
The movie Walk The Line, based on the life of Johnny Cash and starring Joaquin Phoenix as the singer, opens in US theaters.
Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, who plays June Carter, do all of their own singing for the film and its accompanying soundtrack. Phoenix was already nervous about portraying the Man In Black - even more so when he found out he'd have to sing and play guitar - until director James Mangold put him at ease. He recalled the director's words in a CNN interview: "He said, 'Listen, you're not Johnny Cash. You're not going to sound exactly like Johnny Cash. Don't worry about that. If people want to hear Johnny Cash they can get his records.'" As it turns out, people want to hear Phoenix, too. The soundtrack sells over a million copies and wins the Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack album. The film is also a big hit, winning Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actress for Reese Witherspoon, as well as a nomination for Best Actor for Phoenix (who wins a Golden Globe for his performance).
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