1 OCTOBER
Featured Events
2017 During Jason Aldean's headlining set at the Route 91 Harvest festival on the Las Vegas strip, a gunman opens fire from his suite at the nearby Mandalay Bay hotel, killing 58 and injuring over 500 in the deadliest mass shooting in US history.More
2011 After 28 years and two children together, Gene Simmons (62) and Shannon Tweed (54) finally get married. Their wedding song is "At Last," sung by their daughter Sophie.More
2000 Australian rock band Midnight Oil play their hit "Beds Are Burning" at the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Sydney. Their black outfits are emblazoned with the word "sorry," a symbolic olive branch towards the Aboriginals who were forced from their lands by a government that refuses to apologize.More
1970 Janis Joplin makes her last recordings, singing "Mercedes Benz," which is included on her posthumous Pearl album a capella. She also records a goofy version of "Happy Trails" as a birthday present for John Lennon. Joplin dies three days later.
1965 At a concert at Carnegie Hall, Bob Dylan introduces his new band. Formerly Ronnie Hawkins' backup band, they were known as the Hawks, but soon became The Band.
1962 Johnny Carson's Tonight Show makes its debut. The theme song ("Johnny's Theme") is written by Paul Anka, but as part of the deal, Carson writes some lyrics for the song that are published, but never used, earning him half of the royalties from the song, which are substantial, as the song runs throughout Carson's 30-year tenure on the show.
1962 The Beach Boys release their first album, Surfin' Safari, which includes their debut single, "Surfin'." The album climbs to #32 in the US.More
1947 Bing Crosby broadcasts the first ever pre-recorded radio show when he airs his Philco Radio Time show on the ABC network using a magnetophon, a Nazi recording technology discovered and brought to America by US Army Corps Officer John Thomas "Jack" Mullin. The magnetophon leads to the evolution of multi-track recording technology, which revolutionizes the music industry. Crosby becomes an investor in the technology, which he uses so he doesn't have to always do his shows live.
1935 Julie Andrews is born Julia Elizabeth Wells in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, England.More
1 OCTOBER
In Music History
2018 The French singer-songwriter Charles Aznavour dies at 94. His compositions include "Yesterday, When I Was Young" and "If You Go Away."
2018 Peggy Sue Gerron, subject of the Buddy Holly hit "Peggy Sue," dies at 78.
2012 Chris Thile, the mandolin player known for his work with Nickel Creek and Punch Brothers, wins a Genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation. The foundation typically accepts nominees through anonymous selection, and when Thile receives the congratulatory phone call, he thinks its a political robo-call until his agent looks up the number.
2011 Meat Loaf performs at the AFL Grand Final in Melbourne between Collingwood and Geelong. Suffering from a hemorrhaging vocal cord, he struggles through the 12-minute set and is blasted in the press. The singer responds by calling AFL organizers "the cheapest people I've ever seen in my life."More
2010 Justin Timberlake portrays Napster co-founder Sean Parker in the Oscar-nominated film The Social Network, which depicts the founding of Facebook.
2007 A judge awards Kevin Federline custody of his two children with Britney Spears, reasoning that she can't be trusted due to her "habitual, frequent and continuous use of controlled substances and alcohol." Spears starts getting her life together a few months later after her family commits her to a psychiatric institution.
2007 Outside the Soho Revue Bar in London, Laura Marling and her band perform a set in front of shocked and ecstatic fans. The club won't allow the 17-year-old Marling inside to perform because it violates their strict 18 & over policy, so she takes it to the streets. She later returns to the club in February 2008 for an encore of sorts, performing indoors and onstage to celebrate the release of her debut, Alas, I Cannot Swim, and her 18th birthday.
2004 Bruce Palmer (bassist for Buffalo Springfield) dies of a heart attack in Belleville, Ontario, Canada, at age 58.
2002 Ms. Dynamite is the big winner at the UK Music of Black Origin (MOBO) Awards, where she is named Best Newcomer and UK Act of the Year, and her song "It Takes More" wins Best Single. She fades fast, releasing only one more album in the '00s.
2002 The White Stripes play a free show in New York's Union Square Park, treating a large lunchtime crowd to a set full of covers and nuggets from the group's three albums.
2002 Barry White's label reveals that the singer has been hospitalized with kidney failure. Unable to get a transplant, he dies nine months later.
2002 Good Charlotte release their second album, The Young and the Hopeless.
1998 John Fogerty gets a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7000 Hollywood Blvd.
1996 A collection of live Nirvana performances is released on the album From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah.
1996 Fountains of Wayne release their self-titled debut album, which took just five days to record.
Disco-Flavored "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" Hits #1
1977#1 on the Hot 100 is "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" by Meco. It's a 15-minute song made up of Star Wars music set to a disco beat. There's even an R2-D2 bleeping solo.
Meco Monardo, a session trombonist and music producer, is one of the first in line to see Star Wars on opening day in 1977 and is blown away – not just by the intergalactic tale of good vs. evil or the visionary special effects that bring it to life, but by the triumphant main title theme performed by John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra. Through the course of ten more viewings, he brainstorms a disco treatment that will combine the score's various character themes with other quirky elements from the film, like wookiee noises and R2-D2's chirpy bleeps. Star Wars is an instant success both critically and commercially, making stars out of fresh faces like Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher and sending Williams' title theme to #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. So when Meco brings the idea for a disco-infused version of the score to his pal at Casablanca Records, it is immediately green-lit. With the help of Harold Wheeler and Tony Bongiovi, whom he worked with on Gloria Gaynor's 1974 cover of "Never Can Say Goodbye," he arranges and records the Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk album in just three weeks. The "Star Wars Theme/Cantina Band" single ("Cantina Band" referring to the house band's zippy number at the Mos Eisley Cantina) is a #1 hit. The album is nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance, but loses to Williams for the Star Wars Soundtrack.
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