26 November

Pick a Day

26 NOVEMBER

In Music History

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2016 The Kensington, Prince Edward Island, police department makes a Facebook post threatening drunk drivers with Nickelback. "On top of a hefty fine, a criminal charge and a year's driving suspension we will also provide you with a bonus gift of playing the office's copy of Nickelback in the cruiser on the way to jail," it reads. The constable who posted it later apologizes.

2011 Sugarland's lead vocalist, Jennifer Nettles, marries her boyfriend of two years, Justin Miller, at a chapel in the foothills of Tennessee's Smoky Mountains.

2011 English drummer Keef Hartley (of Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, Keef Hartley Band) dies at age 67.

2010 Duffy releases her second album, Endlessly, in the UK. Unlike her breakthrough debut Rockferry, it gets little attention, with no hit singles.More

2008 Atlantic Records becomes the first major label whose digital sales have surpassed its CD sales. Downloads of music and ringtones now account for more than half of Atlantic's US sales.

2008 Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy album fails to achieve massive first-week sales numbers, and Axl Rose points the finger at Dr. Pepper for not having honored its promise made back in March 2008, when the soda company had offered everybody in the US a free can of soda if Guns N' Roses released in 2008 the album which had been announced by Axl Rose for many years.

2006 Raul Velasco, longtime host and producer of the Mexican variety show Siempre en Domingo (Always On Sunday), dies of complications of Hepatitis C at age 73.

2006 Tony "Panama" Silvester (of The Main Ingredient) dies after a six-year battle with cancer (multiple myeloma) at age 65.

2005 Chris Brown, 16, dashes to #1 with his first single, "Run It!" He quickly becomes a superstar with gaudy sales numbers despite persistent legal problems.

2003 James Carter (of James Carter and the Prisoners) dies at age 77. His lead vocal on the prison work song "Po' Lazarus" earned him $20,000 when it was used in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? in 2000, over 40 years after it was recorded.

2002 After nearly 40 years, The Statler Brothers play their last concert ever at the Civic Center in Salem, Virginia.

2002 Actor and major Elvis fan Nicolas Cage divorces the King's daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, after less than four months, citing "irreconcilable differences."

2001 Elton John appears on the show Ally McBeal in the "I Want Love" episode.

2001 At the Queen's Royal Command Performance in London, Elton John, Cher and Donny Osmond perform.

1999 Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes issues a challenge to her TLC bandmates, proposing that they each make solo albums, with the winner determined by sales totals.More

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Casablanca Premieres

1942

Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, premieres at the Hollywood Theatre in New York City. The World War II-era romance revives an old love song - "As Time Goes By" - and inspires the Al Stewart hit "Year of the Cat."

Rick (Bogart) is an American expatriate living in Casablanca, where he owns a nightclub that caters to both Vichy French and German officials, and the refugees desperate to escape the city that's under their control. Through a local criminal named Ugarte (Peter Lorre), Rick secures letters of transit that will allow two people to find refuge in neutral Portugal. When Ilsa walks back into his life years after their failed romance, Rick must choose whether to use the letters to send Ilsa and her fugitive husband to safety or to run off and start a new life with his old flame. The Michael Curtiz-directed film is inextricably linked to "As Time Goes By," a wistful love song that reconnects the former lovers after a year apart. At Ilsa's request, house pianist Sam (drummer Dooley Wilson, who mimed his piano playing) plays the tune, ripping open an old wound for Rick, who has never gotten over Ilsa. The scene is considered one of the most memorable moments in film history, but it nearly ended up on the cutting room floor. Max Steiner, known for his sweeping score to Gone With the Wind three years earlier, tried to convince Curtiz to nix the number, which was originally written for a Broadway musical a decade earlier. Even when the director insisted it would be a logistical nightmare to reshoot the scenes, as the actors had moved on to other projects, Steiner wouldn't relent. His orchestrator, Hugo Friedhofer, finally changed his mind and "As Time Goes By" became a recurring motif throughout the film. In turn, Rudy Vallee's 1931 rendition was re-issued and became a hit. Casablanca wins three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, and Adapted Screenplay. The film's reputation only grows stronger as time goes by. The characters inspire Al Stewart's 1976 song "Year of the Cat," which recalls Bergman entering the café and shady Lorre "contemplating a crime." Iconic lines make their way into popular songs: Rick's lament "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world she has to walk into mine," inspires 21st century angst with Fall Out Boy's From Under the Cork Tree album cut "Of All The Gin Joints In All The World."

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