Pick a Day

27 SEPTEMBER

In Music History

2022 Lizzo plays a few notes from a crystal flute once owned by US President James Madison at her concert in Washington, DC. The instrument, made in 1813, is on loan from the Library of Congress, which is drawing attention to their flute collection, the largest in the world. "It's like playing out of a wine glass," Lizzo says.

2019 Metallica postpone their WorldWired tour so frontman James Hetfield can go back to rehab. Hetfield has struggled with addiction throughout the band's career.

2016 Bruce Springsteen publishes his autobiography, Born To Run. He started working on it after his 2009 performance at the Super Bowl halftime show.

2011 Johnnie Wright (of Johnnie & Jack and the Tennessee Mountain Boys) dies in Madison, Wisconsin, at age 97.

2008 Pink earns her first solo #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with "So What" from her fifth studio album, Funhouse. It holds the position for one week.

2007 Dale Houston (of Dale & Grace) dies of heart failure at age 67.

2007 In Charlotte, Van Halen kick off their North American tour, bringing David Lee Roth back into the fold for the first time since 1985. Their new bass player is Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie's 16-year-old son.

2006 Bowing to the inevitable, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, pulls his legislation reforming the nation's music licensing laws from the congressional agenda, saying he doesn't see how it could get through Congress.

2003 Carly Simon sues the owners of New York's famous Dakota apartment complex, claiming they kept her $59,000 down payment after rejecting her rental application.

2001 Singer Jonathan King, best known for his 1965 hit "Everyone's Gone To The Moon," is found guilty of molesting several young boys and sentenced to seven years in prison.

2000 Quincy Jones' Listen Up Foundation donates $25,000 to five South Central Los Angeles youth organizations. The endowments, made in the names of the five teens who make up Listen Up's From South Central To South Africa youth delegation, are presented during a reception at the Creative Artists Agency in Beverly Hills. The five teens - Martha Gonzalez, JeJuana Johnson, Megan Yaleh Meaway, Hector Sanchez, and Omari Trice - traveled to the Orange Farm Township, outside of Johannesburg, South Africa, one of the country's most disadvantaged communities, to build homes for three South African families.

1997 At the Star Lake Amphitheater in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, INXS play their last show with Michael Hutchence, who is found dead in his hotel room two months later. The last song is "Suicide Blonde."

1994 Egyptian-Canadian singer-songwriter Raffi releases Bananaphone, an album of children's music. Nothing very notable at the time seems apparent; however, the title song becomes a viral Internet craze in 2004 when a Flash animation featuring the song is posted on the website Newgrounds. After this, Raffi becomes internationally famous, and "Bananaphone" makes it onto the radio and later radio and TV shows including The Opie & Anthony Show, The Colbert Report, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

1994 The Dave Matthews Band release their first album, Under The Table and Dreaming. The band is road-tested, with a huge fanbase in the Virginia area, where they have been playing live since 1991. They earn a legion of new fans when the tracks "What Would You Say" and "Ants Marching" get airplay across America, helping the album sell over 6 million copies.

1993 With punk rock pushing into the mainstream, Danzig re-release "Mother," originally issued five years earlier on their debut album. The song earns airplay on rock radio and MTV, and pushes into the pop charts, going to #43 in the US.