30 OCTOBER
Featured Events
2016 With the Cubs in the World Series for the first time since 1945 (they haven't won since 1908), longtime fan Eddie Vedder leads the crowd in "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" during the seventh-inning stretch.More
2010 Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens) makes a rare public appearance, performing "Peace Train" at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, which is organized and hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Midway through the song, Colbert interrupts him and introduces Ozzy Osbourne, who starts performing "Crazy Train." Stevens and Osbourne go back and forth, resulting in a strange and hilarious train wreck.More
2004 Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker marries Playboy model Shanna Moakler in a Nightmare Before Christmas-inspired ceremony with his bandmates serving as his groomsmen. The couple's romantic connection to the classic Tim Burton film gets a nod in the blink single "I Miss You."More
1999 Santana's Supernatural album goes to #1 in America, giving the group their first chart-topping album in 28 years.
1999 It's an early attempt at video over the web, as Neil Young's annual Bridge School Benefit concert is "cybercast" to a few brave souls trying to get their modems to work. The Who, Pearl Jam, and Brian Wilson perform at the show.
1987 George Michael releases his first solo album, Faith. Packed with hits ("I Want Your Sex," "Father Figure," the title track), it goes to #1 in both the UK and US, and wins the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
1984 Less than two years after its release, the RIAA certifies Michael Jackson's Thriller album with sales of 20 million copies in America, introducing a new designation, "Double Diamond." The stratospheric sales of Thriller are unprecedented, and keep climbing to well over 30 million. It isn't until 1994 when another album gets the Double Diamond designation, and that's a greatest hits package: Eagles - Their Greatest Hits 1971 - 1975.
1982 "Who Can It Be Now?," the first single from Men at Work, hits #1 in America.
1975 Bob Dylan performs the first show of his Rolling Thunder Revue at the War Memorial Auditorium in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Later the subject of two documentaries, the unusual tour is no ordinary cash grab.More
30 OCTOBER
In Music History
2021 Carole King, Tina Turner, Jay-Z, LL Cool J, Todd Rundgren, the Go-Go's and Foo Fighters are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
2013 Peter Haycock (frontman for Climax Blues Band) dies of a heart attack in Frankfurt, Germany, at age 62.
2008 The makers of Rock Band secure the rights to produce the first-ever Beatles music video game.
2007 The Eagles release their first album since 1979, Long Road Out of Eden, and Britney Spears issues her fifth album, Blackout. Thanks to a fanbase more comfortable with buying CDs than downloading, the Eagles easily outsell her, moving 7 million copies in America to Spears' 1 million.
2007 Singer/actor Robert Goulet dies while awaiting a lung transplant in Los Angeles, California, at age 73. He had been diagnosed with the rare, progressive disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
2006 Keane becomes the first major act to release a song on a USB memory stick. For £3.99, fans can purchase the 512MB drive at HMV stores, plug it into a computer, and transfer the track "Nothing In My Way" along with various videos and screensavers. The "single on a stick" format would fail to catch on.
2003 Pink Floyd manager Steve O'Rourke dies after suffering a stroke at age 63.
2002 The entire episode of The Late Show with David Letterman is dedicated to Warren Zevon, who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. He plays three songs (his last performances), chats candidly with the host, and offers this sage advice: "enjoy every sandwich."
2002 Jason Mizell aka Jam Master Jay (of Run-DMC), age 37, is shot and killed at a recording studio in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, New York. Although authorities suspect convicted drug dealer Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, a friend of Murder Inc. founders Irv and Chris Gotti, of the crime along with accomplice Randy "Stretch" Walker, they are not convicted and the murder remains unsolved.
2001 Lenny Kravitz releases his sixth studio album, Lenny, featuring his fourth Grammy Award-winning hit, "Dig In."
2001 Tim Booth announces that James' forthcoming UK tour is to be his last with the band. With 11 albums and 20 Top-40 UK singles under its belt with Booth at the helm, the Manchester-based group's remaining members plan to continue making music together following the singer's departure.
2001 Barbra Streisand releases Christmas Memories.
2000 TV personality Steve Allen, also a composer and writer, dies of a heart attack after a minor car accident in Encino, California, at age 78. Allen was a frequent panelist on the long-running game show What's My Line?, the host of the game show I've Got a Secret, and the first host of The Tonight Show.
1998 Original members of Black Sabbath reunite for a one-off performance on Late Show with David Letterman.
1997 The Senate passes the music industry's "La Cienega" bill by a voice vote. The bill closes a loophole in the 1909 copyright Act that put into peril most pre-1978 music copyrights.
Ali Knocks Out Foreman, Inspiring Song
1974At the "Rumble In The Jungle" in Zaire, Africa, boxer Muhammad Ali knocks out George Foreman (unbeaten in 40 fights) in the eighth round in a stunning victory that earns him the heavyweight title he was stripped of for refusing induction into the US Army in 1967. The fight is recounted in the 1975 hit "Black Superman" by Johnny Wakelin & the Kinshasa Band.
Eleven years earlier, Ali sang his own praises (before he was champ) in an album called I Am The Greatest! He makes good on that claim by defeating the fearsome Foreman. The boxing match was promoted by Don King, who organized a festival to go along with it. The fight was supposed to happen on September 25, but Foreman got cut in training, causing a delay. The festival couldn't be pushed back with it, so it went on anyway, with James Brown headlining.
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