7 OCTOBER
In Music History
1996 The "Rock the Vote" campaign to get young people registered in the United States gets some NFL involvement, with quarterbacks Jeff Blake, Drew Bledsoe, Jim Kelly and Steve Young recording public service announcements.
1996 At a stop in Tunis, Tunisia on his HIStory tour, Michael Jackson plays his first concert in Africa as a solo artist. The tour concludes with a series of shows in South Africa.
1996 Pearl Jam fan Mark Zupan crowd surfs all the way to the stage at the band's concert at Fort Lauderdale Stadium... in a wheelchair! He goes on to captain the US wheelchair rugby team and appear in the movie Murderball.
1995 Peter Frampton kicks off a tour in Boston three days before the release of Frampton Comes Alive II, the sequel to his 1975 smash Frampton Comes Alive - the best-selling live album in history.
1990 Soundgarden perform at the Gathering of the Tribes festival in Costa Mesa, California. In the crowd is Eddie Vedder, who the next day flies to Seattle and meets his Pearl Jam bandmates for the first time. Vedder and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden end up recording vocals together that day for the song "Hunger Strike" as part of the Temple of the Dog project.
1988 The documentary Imagine: John Lennon, commissioned by Yoko Ono and directed by Andrew Solt, opens in theaters.
1987 Exodus releases their second studio album, Pleasures of the Flesh.
1982 Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page is given a one-year suspended sentence for cocaine possession.
1978 The Rolling Stones play their new single "Beast Of Burden" on Saturday Night Live.
1978 Billboard magazine reveals that Marvin Gaye has declared bankruptcy twice in the past year, claiming debts of over seven million dollars.
1978 Merle Haggard marries his third wife: Leona Williams, a bass player and singer with Loretta Lynn. The marriage lasts six years.
1976 Dennis Edwards announces he is leaving The Temptations. Four years later, he would rejoin for the group's successful Power album.
1975 The US Court of Appeals overturns the longstanding deportation order for John Lennon, ruling that Lennon, in being held accountable for violating a foreign law (a 1968 rap for possession of marijuana in England), had been denied due process.
1971 Michael Jackson releases "Got To Be There."
1969 The Youngbloods' "Get Together" is certified gold.
Rolling Stones Kick Off Most Lucrative Festival Ever
2016The Rolling Stones play the first night of the Desert Trip festival, which also features Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Roger Waters and the Who. The six-day (split over two weekends) event rakes in $160 million, making it the highest-earning music festival ever.
Read more7 OCTOBER
Featured Events
2014 The TV series The Wonder Years, which went off the air in 1993, is finally released on DVD. What took so long? The distributor spent years clearing most of the 285 songs that were used on the show, including the theme, Joe Cocker's version of "With A Little Help From My Friends."
1999 Garth Brooks releases an album as "Chris Gaines," a character he created that was intended for a movie. The ruse turns off many fans, and the album is Brooks' first since 1995 that fails to debut at #1, charting behind Creed's Human Clay.
1995 Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill reaches the top of the US albums chart in its 15th week, giving the Maverick label, founded by Madonna, its first #1. Morissette is the fourth female artist to have a debut album reach #1 in the 1990s, following Paula Abdul, Mariah Carey and Toni Braxton.More
1989 Paula Abdul's first album, Forever Your Girl, hits #1 in America. The album was released on June 13, 1988 and first appeared on the chart July 23 that year. It took 64 more weeks to hit the top spot, a record for the longest climb to the top.
1986 The Police release their final single, "Don't Stand So Close To Me '86," and then call it a career. They had hoped to reunite and record another album but injury and conflict lead to Stewart Copeland declaring they can no longer work together.More
1968 Long before the US National Anthem becomes a performance piece, the Puerto Rican singer Jose Feliciano makes waves when he does a slow, jazzy version of the song before Game 5 of the World Series between the Tigers and Cardinals. Among those joining the uproar are Tigers starting pitcher Mickey Lolich, who complains that the overly long rendition screwed up his pregame routine.More
1963 Pete Seeger copyrights "We Shall Overcome." The song dates to the early 1900s, but Seeger adapted it into the well-known version that became a civil rights anthem. He lists three others as songwriters, including two representatives of the Highlander Folk School in Tennessee, where he developed the song. Royalties from the song go to the We Shall Overcome Fund, which supports the school and its outreach efforts.
1951 John Mellencamp is born in Seymour, Indiana. He has Spina bifida, but survives thanks to an experimental surgery performed at Riley Children's Hospital in Indianapolis.More
1939 Judy Garland, 16, records "Over The Rainbow" for the movie The Wizard of Oz.
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