2015Motörhead frontman Lemmy Kilmister dies of cancer. He got the diagnosis two days after turning 70, and died two days later.
2003Out on bail and awaiting trial on charges he molested a teenage boy, Michael Jackson proclaims his innocence on 60 Minutes, telling Ed Bradley, "I was outraged. I could never do something like that."
1993Shania Twain and superproducer Mutt Lange get married. In 2001, they have a son named Eja, but divorce in 2010 after Lange takes up with Twain's best friend.
1983Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys dies after diving into very cold water from a boat slip in Marina Del Rey, Los Angeles.
1963Merle Haggard makes his first appearance on the country chart with "Sing A Sad Song," which peaks at #19.
1960The Connie Francis movie Where The Boys Are is released. The movie - risqué for its time - is about four college girls on Spring Break, and it leads to a whole genre of Spring Break movies and popularizes Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, where it was shot, as the destination of choice.
1944Leonard Bernstein scores his first big hit when his musical On The Town, featuring the song "New York, New York" opens on Broadway.
2016Singin' in the Rain star Debbie Reynoldsdies of a stroke at age 84, one day after losing her daughter, actress Carrie Fisher, to a fatal heart attack.
2014Singer Frankie Randall, who often played piano for the Rat Pack in the '60s and entertained in Frank Sinatra's home, dies of lung cancer at age 76.
2010Southern rocker "Mean Gene" Kelton dies at 57 when his SUV collides with a school bus in Crosby, Texas.
2009Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan (drummer and co-lead vocalist for Avenged Sevenfold) dies from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs and alcohol at age 28. The coroner also notes cardiomegaly (an enlarged heart) which may have contributed to his death.
2005Barry Cowsill (of The Cowsills) is found under a wharf in the Mississippi River. Cowsill, living in New Orleans, survived Hurricane Katrina but drowned in the flooding following the storm.
2003Pete Townshend of The Who reveals to a London newspaper that he seriously considered suicide after a 2002 arrest for child pornography charges. The guitarist had claimed he was visiting child porn websites as research for a book dealing with his own sexual abuse as a child.
2002Meri Wilson, known for the 1977 hit "Telephone Man," dies in a car crash at age 53.
2002Cambodia deports Gary Glitter and extradites him back to the UK to face a conviction in London on child pornography charges.
1998Suffering from alcoholism and depression, Atlanta Rhythm Section lead singer Ronnie Hammond gets in an altercation with police in Macon, Georgia, who shoot and wound the singer.
1981The cost of a two song 45-rpm single reaches $1.98 (about the same as the cost of downloading two songs today).
1978John Legend is born John Roger Stephens in Springfield, Ohio.
1978Rolling Stone's annual Readers and Critics Poll both agree that The Rolling Stones album Some Girls is Album Of The Year.
1976Bluesman Freddie King dies of acute pancreatitis and complications from stomach ulcers at age 42.
1975Ted Nugent has a .44 Magnum gun pulled on him at a concert in Spokane, Washington, until the man is wrestled to the ground by security.
1974Helen Reddy's "Angie Baby" hits #1.
Florida Hosts The First Major East Coast Rock Festival
1968
Joni Mitchell, Fleetwood Mac, Steppenwolf and the Grateful Dead, land in Hallandale, Florida's Gulfstream Park to entertain 100,000 fans at Miami Pop Festival II, the East Coast's first major rock festival.
For the last two years, rock music festivals have been growing in scope, ambition, and attendance on the West Coast. The East Coast finally gets into the action at the Gulfstream Park horse racing track in Hallandale, Florida, where an estimated 100,000 fans show up to the party, outdrawing the Miami Pop Festival I that occurred earlier that year by about 75,000.
Miami Pop II features a Flower Stage and a Flying Stage, each operating simultaneously. It is the first major musical event known to employ this dual-stage innovation.
Fans arrive to find the grounds decorated with an assortment of giant sculptures, including an overturned milk carton and a giant blue humanoid, crafted by the University of Miami Art Department. A commemorative comic book featuring several of the headlining musicians is also distributed at the event.
Joni Mitchell calls up her lover Graham Nash along with Richie Havens (not her lover) to perform Dino Valenti's "Get Together." The Grateful Dead invites the crowd onstage to dance as they perform. Someone, purportedly LSD king and soundman Owsley Stanley, records the Dead's set. They open with a 12-minute jam of "Turn on Your Lovelight," and draw down the cosmos for exuberant renditions of "Dark Star," "Saint Stephen," "The Eleven," and "Cryptical Envelopment." They close things up with "And We Bid You Goodnight," which feels particularly touching and authentic in this time of familial feeling, common cause, and loving naiveté.
Pacific Gas & Electric, who will achieve their most commercially successful hit with "Are You Ready" two years later, liquefies minds with their performances, harnessing so much power that they are asked to play four separate times. This Herculean feat of entertainment secures them a recording contract with the big dogs of Columbia Records.
Country Joe and the Fish, Marvin Gaye, Iron Butterfly, Procol Harum and dozens of other acts also perform.
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair will soon eclipse Miami Pop II in the popular American consciousness, but as Rolling Stone declares on February 1, 1969, the festival is "a monumental success in almost every aspect, the first significant - and truly festive - international pop festival held on the East Coast."
Miami Pop II features a Flower Stage and a Flying Stage, each operating simultaneously. It is the first major musical event known to employ this dual-stage innovation.
Fans arrive to find the grounds decorated with an assortment of giant sculptures, including an overturned milk carton and a giant blue humanoid, crafted by the University of Miami Art Department. A commemorative comic book featuring several of the headlining musicians is also distributed at the event.
Joni Mitchell calls up her lover Graham Nash along with Richie Havens (not her lover) to perform Dino Valenti's "Get Together." The Grateful Dead invites the crowd onstage to dance as they perform. Someone, purportedly LSD king and soundman Owsley Stanley, records the Dead's set. They open with a 12-minute jam of "Turn on Your Lovelight," and draw down the cosmos for exuberant renditions of "Dark Star," "Saint Stephen," "The Eleven," and "Cryptical Envelopment." They close things up with "And We Bid You Goodnight," which feels particularly touching and authentic in this time of familial feeling, common cause, and loving naiveté.
Pacific Gas & Electric, who will achieve their most commercially successful hit with "Are You Ready" two years later, liquefies minds with their performances, harnessing so much power that they are asked to play four separate times. This Herculean feat of entertainment secures them a recording contract with the big dogs of Columbia Records.
Country Joe and the Fish, Marvin Gaye, Iron Butterfly, Procol Harum and dozens of other acts also perform.
The Woodstock Music and Art Fair will soon eclipse Miami Pop II in the popular American consciousness, but as Rolling Stone declares on February 1, 1969, the festival is "a monumental success in almost every aspect, the first significant - and truly festive - international pop festival held on the East Coast."
No comments:
Post a Comment