Births
1899: Thomas A. Dorsey
1915: Willie Dixon
1928: Bobby Day
1939: Delaney Bramlett (Delaney and Bonnie)
1946: June Montiero (The Toys)
1948: John Ford (The Strawbs)
1960: Evelyn “Champagne” King
Deaths
1979: Lee Jackson (The Nice)
1981: Rushton Moreve (Steppenwolf)
1995: Wolfman Jack
1999: Guy Mitchell
1999: Dennis Brown
2000: Cub Koda (Brownsville Station)
2003: Herbie Mann
2005: Renaldo “Obie” Benson (The Four Tops)
Events
1897: The trade paper Billboard Advertising renames itself The Billboard.
1956: NBC’s Steve Allen Show capitalizes on the outrage engendered by Elvis Presley’s recent version of “Hound Dog” on The Milton Berle Show by winkingly presenting a new, “clean” Elvis, dressed in a tuxedo and singing “Hound Dog” to an actual basset hound perched on a stool. Backstage, a humiliated Elvis explodes in fury at the Colonel for agreeing to the stunt. The next day, however, fans protest the show, demanding “The REAL Elvis.”
1956: An 11-year-old Brenda Lee signs her first recording contract with Decca Records.
1962: Gene Vincent plays the Cavern Club in Liverpool, opening for a house band called The Beatles.
1964: Married only four days before, Michael Nesmith leaves his San Antonio home to make a name for himself as a folk singer in Los Angeles.
1969: John Lennon and Yoko Ono, along with his son Julian and her daughter Kyoko, are injured in a car crash near Golspie, Scotland. John gets 17 stitches in his face while Yoko has 14; soon, he will bring a cot into Abbey Road studios so she can rest comfortably while he records “Come Together.”
1969: Legendary producer Sam Phillips sells his Sun Records Studio in Memphis.
1970: Jimi Hendrix’ Electric Ladyland Studios in New York are opened for the first time.
1970: Casey Kasem begins his weekly Billboard countdown on the nationally syndicated radio show American Top 40.
1975: Ringo Starr divorces his first wife Maureen Cox after a decade of marriage.
1976: Connie Francis is awarded $2.5 million from the motel where she was sexually assaulted two years earlier.
1998: In her Malibu home, Barbra Streisand marries her second husband, actor James Brolin.
2008: The BBC broadcasts an unseen film interview with John Lennon and Paul McCartney that had been discovered languishing in a London garage.
2009: Michael Jackson’s untimely death a week earlier sends all his albums back into the Billboard Top Ten, including, at #5, The Jackson 5’s Ultimate Collection.
Releases
1969: The Doors, The Soft Parade
1973: Bob Dylan, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
1974: Bob Marley and the Wailers, Burnin’
Recording
1935: Benny Goodman, “King Porter Stomp”
1956: Brenda Lee, “Jambalaya”
1959: Dave Brubeck, “Take Five”
1963: The Beatles: “She Loves You,” “I’ll Get You”
1968: The Beatles, “Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey”
1969: The Beatles, “You Never Give Me Your Money”
Charts
1967: The Association’s “Windy” hits #1
1967: The Beatles’ LP Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band hits #1
1967: The Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” enters the charts
1972: Neil Diamond’s “Song Sung Blue” hits #1
Certifications
1965: The Beatles’ LP Beatles VI is certified gold
1971: Jethro Tull’s LP Aqualung is certified gold
