26 SEPTEMBER
In Music History
1956 The Cassandra column in the Daily Mirror (written by William Connor) insinuates that the pianist Liberace is homosexual.
1955 Carlene Carter is born Rebecca Carlene Smith to June Carter and her first husband, Carl Smith, in Nashville, Tennessee.
1955 Pop singer Eddie Fisher weds actress/singer Debbie Reynolds. The marriage will last just four tumultuous years before Fisher leaves America's Sweetheart for Elizabeth Taylor. Fisher and Reynolds had one child together, actress Carrie Fisher.
1954 Cesar Rosas (of Los Lobos) is born in Hermosillo, Mexico.
1954 Guitarist Craig Chaquico (of Jefferson Airplane) is born in San Francisco, California.
1948 Olivia Newton-John is born in Cambridge, England. She is raised in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
1948 Stuart Tosh (drummer for The Alan Parsons Project) is born in Aberdeen, Scotland.
1947 Country singer Lynn Anderson is born in Grand Forks, North Dakota, but would be raised in Fair Oaks, California. Known for the 1970 hit "(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden."
1945 Bryan Ferry (lead singer for Roxy Music) is born in Washington, Tyne and Wear, England.
1941 Joe Bauer (drummer for The Youngbloods) is born in Memphis, Tennessee.
1937 Bessie Smith dies of severe injuries she sustained in a late-night car accident near Clarksdale, Mississippi, at age 43. The story goes that she was refused admission to a whites-only hospital, and she bled to death. In actuality, two ambulances showed up at the scene - one for the white hospital, one for the black hospital - and being in the Deep South during segregation, she was taken to the latter, where her arm was amputated before she died. Had she been taken to the white hospital, however, she would not have been treated.
1931 George Chambers (of The Chambers Brothers) is born in Carthage, Mississippi.
1926 Jazz singer/actress Julie London is born Gayle Peck in Santa Rosa, California. Known for her 1955 signature song, "Cry Me a River."
1925 Country singer Marty Robbins is born Martin David Robinson in Glendale, Arizona.
1918 Voice actor and horror host John "The Cool" Zacherle is born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Rocky Horror Opens In Theaters
1975The Rocky Horror Picture Show opens in Westwood, California. Featuring a young Meat Loaf along with Tim Curry and Susan Sarandon, the movie tanks but later becomes a cult classic, with audience members shouting back at the screen and bringing toast, toilet paper, and other assorted items to enhance the viewing experience.
Read more26 SEPTEMBER
Featured Events
2008 Clay Aiken announces he is gay in People magazine, saying: "It was the first decision I made as a father. I cannot raise a child to lie or to hide things. I wasn't raised that way, and I'm not going to raise a child to do that."
1992 Gloria Estefan stages a star-studded concert to provide relief to victims of Hurricane Andrew.More
1990 Cop Rock, a musical police drama with a theme song by Randy Newman, debuts on ABC. Stung by scathing reviews and terrible ratings, it is cancelled after 11 episodes.More
1987 Whitney Houston scores the fifth of seven consecutive #1 hits when "Didn't We Almost Have It All" tops the Hot 100.
1986 In Solna, Sweden, Metallica play their last show with bass player Cliff Burton, who dies when the band's tour bus crashes on the way to the next stop. The last song is "Blitzkrieg."
1966 The lyrically dissonant "Cherish" (don't play it at your wedding) by The Association hits #1 in America. In 1971, David Cassidy of The Partridge Family has his first hit with a cover of the song.
1964 Roy Orbison's "(Oh) Pretty Woman" hits #1 in America for the first of three weeks.
1957 The musical West Side Story, a retelling of Romeo and Juliet with New York City gang members, debuts on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre. It runs for 732 performances.
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