23 OCTOBER
In Music History
1978 "Mother" Maybelle Carter dies in Hendersonville, Tennessee, at age 69, inspiring her son-in-law Johnny Cash's song "Tears in the Holston River."
1978 Neil Young's Zuma Beach, California, home burns to the ground in a brush fire.
1978 CBS Records jacks up album prices for their big-name releases to $8.98, becoming the first label to do so.
1976 Leonard Lee (of Shirley & Lee) dies of a heart attack at age 40.
1976 Chicago's "If You Leave Me Now" hits #1 in America for the first of two weeks.
1975 As part of "Elton John Week" in Los Angeles, Elton is awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Blvd.
1969 Columbia Records announces its intention to prosecute the purveyors of Great White Way, an unauthorized collection of unreleased Bob Dylan demos that is often considered the first "bootleg" record.
1968 Elvis Presley's movie Live A Little, Love A Little is released.
1966 The Yardbirds, in their first concert featuring Jimmy Page on lead guitar, open at San Francisco's Fillmore West.
1966 The Jimi Hendrix Experience records "Hey Joe."
1966 Gospel singer David Thomas (of Take 6) is born.
1964 J. Frank Wilson of the Cavaliers, who scored a huge teen-tragedy hit three years earlier with "Last Kiss," is badly injured in his own car crash near Lima, Ohio, one that unfortunately takes the life of the song's producer, Sonley Roush.
1964 Robert Trujillo (bassist for Metallica and Suicidal Tendencies) is born in Santa Monica, California.
1963 Bob Dylan records "The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll" and "When The Ship Comes In."
1956 Country singer Dwight Yoakam is born in Pikeville, Kentucky, but is raised in Columbus, Ohio. Aside from chart-topping hits like "Streets of Bakersfield" and "I Sang Dixie," Yoakam is also known for his roles in films like Sling Blade (1996) and Panic Room (2002).
"Weird Al" Yankovic Is Born
1959"Weird Al" Yankovic is born Alfred Matthew Yankovic in Downey, California, and raised in Lynwood.
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Featured Events
2006 My Chemical Romance release their wildly popular third album, The Black Parade, which was recorded during the band's stay at the notoriously haunted Paramour Mansion in Los Angeles.More
2002 Kanye West, recently signed to Roc-a-Fella Records, falls asleep at the wheel and crashes his car into an oncoming vehicle. His jaw is shattered, inspiring his song "Through The Wire," which he records with his jaw wired shut. The song appears on his debut album, The College Dropout, in 2004.
1991 Rage Against the Machine play live for the first time with a show at California State University, Northridge, opening with "Killing In The Name," which is still an instrumental.
1976 Led Zeppelin, who avoid TV appearances because of sound problems, appear on American television for the first time when they play Don Kirshner's Rock Concert.
1961 Dion's "Runaround Sue" hits #1 for the first of two weeks. Dion pulled the name Sue out of thin air, but when he later marries a woman named Sue, she tells everyone the song is about her - even though she knows it isn't.
1940 Ellie Greenwich is born Eleanor Louise Greenwich in Brooklyn, New York. One of the most successful songwriters of the '60, her co-writes include "Leader of the Pack" and "Be My Baby."
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