11
Featured Events
2010The Billboard Social 50 chart debuts, ranking artists by popularity on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Vevo, Myspace, and iLike. Rihanna comes in at #1, followed by Justin Bieber and Eminem.
1968The Rolling Stones record their Rolling Stones' Rock and Roll Circus TV special - and then bury it for nearly 30 years.More
1964Sam Cooke is killed at age 33 when the manager of the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles (where rooms cost $3 a night) shoots him three times. The manager claims that Cooke assaulted her and that he tried to rape his companion. The incident was ruled a justifiable homicide.
1961Motown Records scores their first #1 on the Hot 100 when The Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman" tops the chart.
1960Aretha Franklin plays her first concert, performing at the Village Vanguard in New York City.
11
In Music History
2015Peter Garrett, frontman for the incendiary Aussie rock band Midnight Oil, publishes his memoir, Big Blue Sky.
2014Country singer Dawn Sears (of The Time Jumpers) dies of lung cancer at age 53. She was a member of Vince Gill's road band and sang harmony on his 1992 album, I Still Believe In You.
2013Tommy Ruger (drummer for The Nightcrawlers) dies of multiple health issues, including diabetes, in Port Orange, Florida, at age 67.
2012Sitar maestro Ravi Shankar dies during surgery for a heart valve replacement in San Diego, California, at age 92. He was survived by two daughters, Norah Jones and Anoushka Shankar. His son, musician Shubhendra Shankar, died in 1992.
2010Good Charlotte's Joel Madden marries Nicole Richie at the home of Richie's dad, Lionel Richie, in Los Angeles.
2006"All I Want For Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey becomes the first ringtone certified Gold for sales of over 500,000.
1998Lynn Strait (lead singer for Snot) dies in a car accident in Santa Barbara, California, at age 30.
1990Led Zeppelin IV is certified Diamond, with sales of 10 million in America.
1989Supporting Alice Cooper, Great White play Wembley Arena; the concert is broadcast later by The Friday Rock Show and is released the following year in Japan as Live In London.
1988Los Angeles' Wiltern Theatre plays host to a Roy Orbison tribute concert, featuring Don Henley, Tom Petty, Graham Nash and Bonnie Raitt.
1976Al Stewart's "Year Of The Cat" enters the pop charts.
1973Bobby Darin has an operation to repair his artificial heart valves at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles. He dies nine days later at age 37.
1973The Carpenters' "Top Of The World" is certified Gold.
1972Genesis play their first-ever US show at Massachusetts' Brandeis University.
Jerry Lee Lewis Marries His Underage Cousin
1957
In what remains one of the most shocking celebrity scandals, Jerry Lee Lewis marries 13-year-old Myra Gale Brown, who was the daughter of his cousin (and bass player), J.W. Brown. The marriage lasts 14 years but seriously damages Lewis' career.
The press gets wind of the union in London, where 22-year-old Lewis – riding high on piano-pounding hits like "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" and "Great Balls of Fire" – is embarking on his first-ever tour. A Daily Mail reporter notices Lewis' child bride in the rocker's entourage and asks who she is. "I'm Jerry Lee's wife," she replies. The ensuing outrage forces Lewis back to the States where he quickly realizes the scandal has followed him home. His once-promising single "High School Confidential" stalls on the charts and a New York crowd boos him off the stage.
Effectively blacklisted, Lewis fades from the spotlight over the next decade, but makes a surprise comeback in 1968 on the country music scene with a hit recording of Jerry Chestnut's "Another Place, Another Time." By the mid-'70s, he notches 16 more Top 10 hits on the country tally and becomes one of the biggest country singers in the world – or, as he boldly declares to the conservative Grand Ole Opry crowd: "I am a rock and rollin', country & western, rhythm & blues singing motherf--ker!"
Despite the fallout from his union with Myra, Lewis doesn't shy away from wedding bells; he marries a total of six times. The rock gods also begin smiling down on Lewis again as he's one of the first artists inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, restoring his reputation as rock's original wild man.
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