1970 Mark Calderon (of Color Me Badd) is born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
1969 A new version of The Dells' 1956 hit "Oh What A Night," now with a sonorous spoken intro, goes to #1 on the R&B chart.
1968 Flatt & Scruggs play the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, bringing bluegrass to a city known for its psychedelic sound. "The hippies were coming up and touching Scruggs and saying 'You're for real,'" producer Bob Johnston recalls.
1966 Stephan Jenkins (frontman for Third Eye Blind) is born in Indio, California.
1964 In their national TV debut, The Beach Boys appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing "I Get Around."
1962 Martha Reeves and the Vandellas record "I'll Have To Let Him Go."
1958 Pop singer/actor Shaun Cassidy is born in Los Angeles, California. Although he doesn't join The Partridge Family cast with mom Shirley Jones and half-brother David Cassidy, he stars on The Hardy Boys Mysteries and lands a trio of Top 10 hits in 1977 - including the chart-topper "Da Doo Ron Ron."
1954 The first national Tonight Show with Steve Allen is telecast.
1953 Greg Ham (keyboard/flute player for Men At Work) is born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
1952 Bassist Robbie Shakespeare (of Sly and Robbie) is born in Kingston, Jamaica.
1952 Patti Page's "I Went To Your Wedding" hits #1.
1947 Johnny Ace's "My Song" hits #1 R&B.
1947 Meat Loaf is born Marvin Lee Aday in Dallas, Texas. He's often asked how he got his name, so he makes up a few stories, sometimes claiming a football coach told him he had "meat loaf for brains," and other times saying he looked like a wad of meat as an infant.
1944 Randy Bachman (of The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive) is born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
1942 In Passaic, New Jersey, Glenn Miller plays his last concert as a civilian. Ten days later he joins the Army, where he performs for troops. In December 1944, his plane disappears over the Atlantic Ocean.
Bob Dylan plays "Knocking On Heaven's Door" and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" for Pope John Paul II and an audience of 300,000 at the World Eucharist Congress in Bologna, Italy. For the 77-year-old Pope, it's a chance to connect with young people, and the pontiff does so by invoking Dylan's song "Blowin' In The Wind" during his sermon. Dylan's invite is not without controversy, as the future Pope Benedict fears the "rock prophet" and his music are at odds with the Roman Catholic faith.
Read more2004 Legendary rock producer Phil Spector, best known for creating the "Wall Of Sound" on hits like The Ronettes' "Be My Baby" and The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," is indicted for the February 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson at his estate in Alhambra, California.
2000 U2, whose video for "Where The Streets Have No Name" comes from a rooftop concert, play another roofie, this time atop the Clarence Hotel in Dublin to play their new songs "Beautiful Day" and "Elevation" for air on Top Of The Pops.
1995 With gangsta rap drawing negative publicity, Time Warner sells their share of Interscope Records to the founders, Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field. The next release is Dogg Food by Tha Dogg Pound, which goes to #1 in America.
1986 Cliff Burton (Metallica's second bassist) dies in a bus crash in Sweden during Metallica's Damage Inc. tour in support of the Master of Puppets album. Burton, age 24, is asleep in his bunk when the bus skids off the road. He is thrown from the window and crushed when the vehicle rolls over him.
1986 The Beatles' re-released version of "Twist And Shout" peaks at #23 thanks to its use in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
1980 Kurtis Blow becomes the first rapper to perform on national television when he does "The Breaks" on Soul Train. Host Don Cornelius is flummoxed. "It doesn't make sense to old guys like me," he tells Kurtis in the interview segment.More
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