2000Barbra Streisand closes out her Timeless tour with a show at Madison Square Garden. It's billed as her last tour, but she returns to the road six years later.
1991Jazz legend Miles Davis dies of pneumonia, respiratory failure and stroke at age 65.
1989Jimmy Buffett publishes his first book, a collection of short stories called Tales From Margaritaville that blends truth with confabulation.
1972The Temptations release "Papa Was A Rollin' Stone." The single is cut to 6:58 because there's not enough vinyl on a 45 to handle the 11:46 album version.
1968The Beatles' "Hey Jude" (backed with "Revolution") hits #1 in America. It holds the top spot for nine weeks, the longest of any Beatles single.
2016Lily Allen's wish to have the man of her dreams throw her over his shoulder and carry her off comes true when she drinks herself into a stupor at the Notting Hill Carnival.More
2012A judge orders an audit of R&B singer Chris Brown's community-service records. The community service is part of a sentence handed down on his domestic violence charge in his 2009 incident with then-girlfriend Rihanna. While Brown claims to be done with his service, the court thinks some fishy finagling of the numbers happened, showing discrepancies in Brown's claim of having served at Tappahannock Children's Center, cleaning stables at the Richmond Police Department, and inventorying smoke detectors and fire extinguishers. Kind of a menial place for a celebrity, no?
2007It's the day of the 9th Annual "Standin' on the corner festival" in Winslow, Arizona, inspired by the lyrics to "Take It Easy."
2006The Grascals claim the Entertainer of the Year trophy at the 17th annual International Bluegrass Music Awards at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville.
2004An editorial titled "Something Bad Has Begun" by the former Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf Islam, is published in the Los Angeles Times.More
2004A Beverly Hills tribute concert in honor of Ray Charles, featuring Stevie Wonder, Michael McDonald, James Ingram, and Patti Austin, raises $15 million for Atlanta's African-American institution, Morehouse College.
2001Celine Dion and Peter Gabriel perform at an American Red Cross benefit concert at Montreal's Molson Centre for victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.
2000Ballet For Life, a ballet tribute to late Queen singer and AIDS casualty Freddie Mercury, premieres at London's Sadler's Wells Theatre.
1999Jean-Michel Jarre announces during a press conference at the Cairo Opera House that he has been commissioned by the Egyptian government to create and perform "The Twelve Dreams Of The Sun," a three-act "electronic opera" to mark the millennium night in the Egyptian desert.
1997The DVD-Audio format is introduced at the Audio Engineering Society (AES) conference.
1995Singer Bobby Brown escapes injury in a gun battle that kills his sister's fiance and riddles Brown's car with bullets in Boston's Roxbury section.
1994Uwe Vandrei, an obsessed fan of Sarah McLachlan who inspired her song "Possession," commits suicide in Ottawa. Vandrei had sued McLachlan for songwriting credit on the track, but the case had yet to reach trial.
1987Hilary Duff is born in Houston, Texas.
Garth Brooks #1 As Country Goes Mainstream
1991
Thanks to a proliferation of "New Country" radio stations and more accurate reporting, country music goes mainstream as Garth Brooks' Ropin' the Windbecomes the first country album to debut at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart.
Brooks already found international fame a year earlier with the release of his breakthrough No Fences album, a collection of tracks that tipped its hat to traditional country while roping in elements from classic rock. His next offering, Ropin' the Wind, channels James Taylor with sensitive country pop ballads "The River" and "What She's Doing Now," and blasts through a cut of Billy Joel's power ballad "Shameless." In concert Brooks is more '70s arena rocker than '90s country star, tearing across the stage, smashing guitars and - later - flying over the crowd via a modified trapeze.
The Oklahoma native joins the pack of up-and-comers that includes Brooks & Dunn, Clint Black, Travis Tritt and Alan Jackson, hat-wearing neotraditional country performers who worship the likes of Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb, but Brooks' rock sensibilities make him an anomaly. With the expansion of FM radio, country blasts out of the prairie and into the mainstream, where "New Country" stations welcome artists like Brooks who are too modern for traditional country and too traditional for the burgeoning alt rock scene. Baby boomers missing the melodic rock and singer-songwriter acts of their youth take solace in a genre that borrows those elements while touting traditional values like hard work and patriotism.
"Although it might not be what orthodox fans consider country, Garth Brooks has brought this music to a whole new audience," says Billy Joel. "He took a certain amount of the snobbery out of it. What he did was rev it up, give it a kick in the ass, inject some rock'n'roll, just like Elvis Presley did when he first came out, except he took hillbilly music and put some R&B in it."
Country purists are aghast at Brooks' brand of country, but sales don't lie. Largely eliminating human error, Billboard implements SoundScan technology to track album sales electronically for more accurate figures… and proves that country is more popular than ever.
Ropin' the Wind is the first country album to debut at #1 on the Billboard 200, and it won't be the last. Billy Ray Cyrus is close behind with his 1992 debut, Some Gave All, which spends a record-breaking 17 consecutive weeks at the apex. Brooks notches five more #1 studio albums straight out of the gate before his recording hiatus in 2001. But crossover success isn't just for the guys: Faith Hill, Shania Twain, LeAnn Rimes, and the Dixie Chicks flood the country pop landscape by the end of the decade.
The Oklahoma native joins the pack of up-and-comers that includes Brooks & Dunn, Clint Black, Travis Tritt and Alan Jackson, hat-wearing neotraditional country performers who worship the likes of Hank Williams and Ernest Tubb, but Brooks' rock sensibilities make him an anomaly. With the expansion of FM radio, country blasts out of the prairie and into the mainstream, where "New Country" stations welcome artists like Brooks who are too modern for traditional country and too traditional for the burgeoning alt rock scene. Baby boomers missing the melodic rock and singer-songwriter acts of their youth take solace in a genre that borrows those elements while touting traditional values like hard work and patriotism.
"Although it might not be what orthodox fans consider country, Garth Brooks has brought this music to a whole new audience," says Billy Joel. "He took a certain amount of the snobbery out of it. What he did was rev it up, give it a kick in the ass, inject some rock'n'roll, just like Elvis Presley did when he first came out, except he took hillbilly music and put some R&B in it."
Country purists are aghast at Brooks' brand of country, but sales don't lie. Largely eliminating human error, Billboard implements SoundScan technology to track album sales electronically for more accurate figures… and proves that country is more popular than ever.
Ropin' the Wind is the first country album to debut at #1 on the Billboard 200, and it won't be the last. Billy Ray Cyrus is close behind with his 1992 debut, Some Gave All, which spends a record-breaking 17 consecutive weeks at the apex. Brooks notches five more #1 studio albums straight out of the gate before his recording hiatus in 2001. But crossover success isn't just for the guys: Faith Hill, Shania Twain, LeAnn Rimes, and the Dixie Chicks flood the country pop landscape by the end of the decade.
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