2002 Kelly Clarkson beats Justin Guarini to become the first winner of American Idol.More
2001 System Of A Down release Toxicity, a classic of the Armenian folk-metal genre that sells over 3 million copies.More
1981 Beyoncé Knowles is born in Houston, Texas. She finds fame as the lead singer of the '90s girl group Destiny's Child before becoming Queen Bey.
1976 Fleetwood Mac's self-titled album makes #1 a year after its release, knocking off Peter Frampton's Frampton Comes Alive. It's the band's first album with Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.More
1976 "You Should Be Dancing" by the Bee Gees goes to #1 in America. The next year, it is used in the Saturday Night Fever scene where John Travolta clears the dance floor.
1968 "Street Fighting Man" by The Rolling Stones is banned in Chicago and some other cities as local officials fear it will incite riots.
2023 Diana Ross makes a surprise appearance at Beyoncé's Los Angeles show to wish her a happy 42nd B'Day. After singing her hit "Love Hangover," Ross leads the crowd in "Happy Birthday."
2023 Gary Wright, known for his 1975 hit "Dream Weaver," dies at 80 after a battle with Parkinson's disease and Lewy body dementia.
2023 Smash Mouth frontman Steve Harwell dies of liver failure at 56.
2014 All is well in Seattle as the Super Bowl champion Seahawks play the first game of the season, with local band Soundgarden performing during the pregame.
2009 The-Dream and Christina Milian elope in Las Vegas; they separate three months later, though the split is not made public until July 2010.
2007 The Bob Dylan "biographical" movie, I'm Not There: Suppositions On A Film Concerning Dylan, premieres at the Venice (Italy) Film Festival.
1997 Accepting the award for Best New Artist, 19-year-old Fiona Apple rages against the machine, saying: "This world is bulls--t. And you shouldn't model your life about what you think we think is cool, what we're wearing, and what we're saying."More
1996 At the MTV Video Music Awards, Van Halen, who recently parted ways with lead singer Sammy Hagar, appear on stage with their founding frontman David Lee Roth for the first time in 11 years to present an award. The reunion is short lived - a month later they announce Gary Cherone (formerly of Extreme) as their new lead singer. Roth releases a statement saying, "I was an unwitting participant in this deception." Van Halen release one album with Cherone before reuniting with Roth in 2007.
1991 Country singer Dottie West, 58, dies five days after getting in a car accident on her way to perform at the Grand Ole Opry.
1986 Gregg Allman is arrested in Belleview, Florida, when a police officer sees his 1985 Trans Am weaving on Route 441. He blows a .27 (legal limit: .10) and is charged with drunken driving and driving with an expired license. Allman is sentenced to five days in jail and ordered to do community service, which he serves by playing a drug-and-alcohol-free graduation party for area high schools. He does his time in January 1987, a month before his aptly titled solo album I'm No Angel is released.
1980 Pop singer Dan Miller (of O-Town) is born in Laconia, New Hampshire.
1972 John Lennon and Yoko Ono appear on Jerry Lewis' muscular dystrophy telethon.
1971 At a Bruce Springsteen show at the Student Prince in Asbury Park, New Jersey, the E Street Band comes together when sax player Clarence Clemons joins the band on stage for the first time, a story recounted in the song "Tenth Avenue Freeze-out."
1970 The Rolling Stones release Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!
1969 The Youngbloods, a rare rock band scheduled to appear on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, are scratched. Carson says it's because they were being disrespectful; the band says they were slated to play two songs: a new one and their hit "Get Together," but when the show went long, the producers nixed the new song, so they walked.
"Abracadabra" by the Steve Miller Band hits #1 in the US, giving the veteran rocker his third chart-topper.
Miller, who enjoyed a run of hits in the '70 that included the #1s "The Joker" and "Rock 'N' Me," took four years off starting in 1977, returning in 1981 with Circle of Love, an album of "mood music" with one track taking up all of Side 2. He joins the '80s dance party with his next album, Abracadabra. The title track vaults to #1 and puts him back in the limelight, even getting the reclusive rocker on MTV (although he's barely in the video). When Miller sets out on tour, he finds that the magic is missing: only a few thousand fans are showing up at arenas he could easily fill in the '70s. "Abracadabra" fits right in with the '80s, but Miller does not, so he once again stops touring. Six years go by before classic rock radio starts picking up his earlier hits, and with his music back in vogue, he returns to the road, this time to much larger crowds.
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