2023 She's got yule, babe: Cher releases her first holiday album, Christmas, with a cover of "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" featuring Darlene Love. Cher sang backup on Love's original version 60 years earlier in 1963.
2016 Little Big Town release the single "Better Man," which they later reveal was written by Taylor Swift, marking the first time she pitched a song to another artist.
2013 Kelly Clarkson marries Brandon Blackstock, Reba McEntire's stepson. They have two children before splitting up in 2020.
2011 John Mayer has throat surgery to treat a problem with his vocal cords, pushing back the release of his album Born and Raised.
2010 Lil Wayne, in prison on weapons charges, hits #1 in America with his album I Am Not a Human Being, recorded before he started serving his eight-month sentence.
2005 Jazz singer/pianist Shirley Horn dies of complications from diabetes at age 71.
2003 Amy Winehouse, 20, issues her first album, Frank, in the UK. It doesn't appear in America until 2007.
2002 A man identifying himself as Kid Rock's personal assistant is charged with felony and misdemeanor drug possession after a traffic stop on Rock's tour bus on the Florida Turnpike. Officers find a small amount of cocaine, two marijuana cigarettes, a glass pipe, and rolling papers on Kevin J. McMahon's person and in his luggage. He is released from jail on $16,000 bond.
2001 Raising money for victims of the September 11th attacks, Paul McCartney leads "The Concert For New York" in Madison Square Garden. Elton John, Billy Joel, David Bowie, The Who, and Eric Clapton all participate.
1999 A year after nearly dying from pneumonia, Johnny Cash finds himself battling the condition again. Cash is listed in serious condition at Baptist Hospital in Nashville.
1998 98 Degrees release their breakout album, 98 Degrees and Rising, featuring the hit singles "Because Of You" and "The Hardest Thing," as well as "True To Your Heart," a duet with Stevie Wonder from the Disney movie Mulan.
1997 Canned Heat guitarist Henry "The Sunflower" Vestine, age 52, dies of respiratory and heart failure in a Paris hotel room just after finishing a European tour with the band.
1996 Carly Simon is unable to perform due to stage fright, aboard the Queen Elizabeth II in New York.
1991 Country music singer Clint Black marries TV actress Lisa Hartman. The couple met when Hartman and her mother attended a New Year's concert Black gave in Houston.
1984 A-ha make their television debut, performing four songs – including an early version of their future #1 hit "Take On Me" - on Lordagssirkus, a program from their native Norway.
Lynyrd Skynyrd members Ronnie Van Zant and Steve Gaines die in a plane crash in Mississippi. Gaines' sister Cassie, a backup singer with the group, is also killed along with two pilots and the band's manager. Other members of the group are badly injured.
Read more2000 Ice-T, who in 1992 released the incendiary song "Cop Killer," makes his debut on the TV series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit playing a cop: Detective Fin Tutuola.
1992 Madonna releases Erotica, a concept album about the pleasures and pitfalls of sex and romance, a day before her controversial Sex book hits the market.More
1979 The instrumental "Rise" by Herb Alpert goes to #1 in America, thanks to its use on the soap opera General Hospital.
1977 In town for a gig with The Police, Sting kills some time by walking through the red light district of Paris. Watching the ladies of the night ply their trade gives him the inspiration for what becomes the band's first hit: "Roxanne."
1973 The Rolling Stones ballad "Angie" hits #1 in America.
1971 Snoop Dogg is born Cordozar Calvin Broadus, Jr. in Long Beach, California. His parents call him "Snoopy" because of his resemblance to Charlie Brown's pet beagle.
1962 "Monster Mash" by Bobby Pickett & the Crypt-Kickers hits #1 on its way to becoming the most famous Halloween song of all time. Pickett's vocals are his impression of Boris Karloff, who was known for his role as Frankenstein's monster.
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