30
Featured Events
2016David Bowie's Blackstar album hits #1 in America, 20 days after his death. It's Bowie's first #1 album in the States.
1999America is abuzz with Britney Spears, whose debut single "...Baby One More Time" goes to #1 as her album also reaches the top.More
1994Natalie Cole sings the US national anthem at Superbowl XXVIII in Atlanta, Georgia. Halftime is country, with Clint Black, The Judds and Travis Tritt among the performers.
1973Kiss play their first concert, performing at the Popcorn Club in Queens, New York. They wear makeup onstage, but not the look they become known for.
1972British soldiers open fire on 26 unarmed civilians during a peaceful protest march in Derry, Northern Ireland, resulting in 14 deaths. The incident inspires Paul McCartney to write "Give Ireland Back To The Irish" (Wings' debut single) and gives rise to the U2 song "Sunday Bloody Sunday."
1958Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock" enters the UK chart at #1, the first single ever to do so.
30
In Music History
2015Record producer Suge Knight is arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of murder the day after he was involved in a hit-and-run that killed his friend Terry Carter and injured actor Cle Denyale Sloan. Knight was on the set of the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton when he allegedly argued with the two men, then followed them to a burger joint where he ran them down in the parking lot. Witnesses claim he even backed over the victims with his truck before leaving the scene, but Knight's lawyer insists he was fleeing for his own safety.
2014Poison lead singer Bret Michaels introduces his new line of cologne: Roses & Thorns. Because every rose has its thorn.
2013Patty Andrews (lead singer of The Andrews Sisters) dies at age 94. She was the youngest and last surviving member of the group of singing sisters.
2002Freddy Fender is released from a San Antonio, Texas, hospital after successfully recovering from kidney transplant surgery.
2000Backed by drummers, bagpipers, and sign language interpreters, Faith Hill sings the National Anthem at Super Bowl XXXIV, which the Rams win over the Titans. Like Whitney Houston's 1991 Super Bowl performance, it goes over so well that it's released as a single, charting at #118.
1996Eazy-E's posthumous album Str8 off tha Streetz of Muthaphukkin Compton is released. It debuts at #3 on the Billboard 200 chart and #1 on the R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
1993The Eazy-E EP 5150 Home 4 tha Sick, his first recording since the end of N.W.A., debuts at #70 on the Billboard 200 chart.
1989Exodus releases their third studio album, Fabulous Disaster.
1989With Steven Adler in rehab, Don Henley fills in on drums for Guns N' Roses when they play "Patience" at the American Music Awards. Axl Rose had recorded vocals for Henley's song "I Will Not Go Quietly," which appears later in the year.
1989Singer Samantha Fish is born in Kansas City, Missouri.
1988Robbie Robertson of The Band appears on Saturday Night Live, making his first live TV appearance in 12 years.
1988INXS land their first and only US #1 with "Need You Tonight."
1988Two years after a cover of Nanci Griffith's "Love At The Five And Dime" gave Kathy Mattea her first hit, the country singer lands her first #1 with another Griffith tune: "Goin' Gone."
1982Country blues musician Lightnin' Hopkins dies of esophageal cancer at age 69.
1980New Orleans bluesman Professor Longhair dies of a heart attack at age 61.
Beatles Rock The Rooftop
1969The Beatles stage their famous rooftop concert on the roof of Apple Records in London. After performing a few songs, including "Get Back" and "Don't Let Me Down," the police shut them down as a large crowd gathers. It is The Beatles' last public performance.
Maybe if the businessmen down below knew they were eavesdropping on the end of an era, they wouldn't have complained about the racket interrupting their lunch break. The rooftop concert is a bright spot in the tension-fueled recording sessions for what will become the Let It Be album and the accompanying Let It Be documentary. The band hasn't ventured outside the studio since the summer of 1966, when they gave their last paid concert performance in San Francisco's Candlestick Park, and is hoping to get back to their roots playing music without the aid of studio magic. Paul McCartney thought they could stage a live concert to promote the new album, with the footage doubling as the climax to the documentary film. But no one could decide on a venue. Suggestions range from a cruise ship to their old stomping ground the Cavern Club to the mouth of a volcano. Yoko Ono suggests they perform to an auditorium of 20,000 empty seats. A frustrated George Harrison demands they nix the concert idea, which has become an albatross around their necks and is preventing them from making any real progress. But what is to become of the documentary without the concert? No one knows exactly who came up with the idea, but heading up to the Apple rooftop was something everyone could finally agree on. Joined by keyboardist Billy Preston, the band – including Harrison and John Lennon bundled up in fur coats – launches into a brief but memorable set that blasts through the workday drudgery in the streets below. Besieged by noise complaints, the police make their way to the rooftop as a magnificently bearded McCartney belts out a third run-through of "Get Back" with the ad-libbed lyrics "You've been playing on the roofs again, and you know your Momma doesn't like it, she's gonna have you arrested!" Ringo Starr, who grudgingly agreed to take part in the performance, is enlivened by the possibility of an arrest: "Someone was complaining and the police came up and I just thought, 'We're on film. Drag me off the drums, or something.' But instead it was, 'Well, I'm afraid you've got to turn it down' and the plug was pulled. It could have been incredible. The Beatles carted off by the police. That would have been great." The concert isn't capped by an arrest, but with Lennon quipping, "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we've passed the audition." By the time Let It Be hits theaters, the band has already broken up, but the rooftop performance becomes an iconic moment in the Beatles' pantheon and in rock history in general. Nearly two decades later, U2 stages a rooftop concert in Los Angeles for their "Where The Streets Have No Name" video in honor of the Beatles.
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