2008The first Fender Stratocaster set alight on stage by Jimi Hendrix is auctioned. The guitar sells for $575,000 to collector Daniel Boucher - less than the $1 million predicted. It is one of only two guitars definitively burned by Hendrix - the other was at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
1991Guitarist C.C. DeVille is kicked out of Poison after he sabotages their performance at the MTV Video Music Awards by playing "Talk Dirty To Me" instead of "Unskinny Bop" as planned. DeVille rejoins the band five years later.More
1981Soft Cell hit #1 in the UK with an electronic cover of "Tainted Love," a song originally released by the American soul singer Gloria Jones in 1964. The song also charts in America, reaching #8 in July 1982. It's the only hit for the duo in the States, but they have many more in their native UK.
1976Garry Rossington of Lynyrd Skynyrd falls asleep at the wheel of his new Ford Torino and hits a tree and a house. The incident inspires their song "That Smell."
1946Queen frontman Freddie Mercury is born as Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar (a set of islands off the coast of Africa).More
1945Boudleaux Bryant and Felice Scaduto get married. The couple become one of the most successful songwriting teams in pop music, with over 700 songs published, including "Wake Up Little Susie" and "Bye Bye Love."
2014Miranda Lambert and Blake Shelton open a bed and breakfast called The Ladysmith in Tishomingo, Oklahoma. It can be seen in Blake's video for "Sangria."
2014Pop singer Simone Battle (of G.R.L.) dies of an apparent suicide in Los Angeles, California, at age 25.
2012Country/folk musician Joe South dies of heart failure in Buford, Georgia, at age 72.
2007Influential blogger Perez Hilton declares himself "obsessed" with the unsigned artist Eric Hutchinson, earning the singer 3,000 new MySpace friends and serious industry buzz, leading to a deal with Warner Bros. Records.
1998R&B singer Sonny Knight dies at age 64 in Maui, Hawaii, two years after suffering a stroke. Known for the 1956 hit "Confidential."
1992Following in the tradition of Billy Joel and David Bowie, John Mellencamp marries a supermodel: Elaine Irwin.More
1990B.B. King receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1987American Bandstand airs on network TV for the last time. ABC picked up the show in 1957, and throughout its run on the network, Dick Clark was the host. The show continued another year in syndication and aired one season on the USA network in 1989.
1978Joe Negroni of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers dies of a cerebral hemorrhage in New York City at age 37.
1972Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway's duet "Where Is The Love?" is certified Gold.
1971While Wishbone Ash are on stage at an outdoor concert in Austin, Texas, hot dog vender Francisco Carrasco is shot dead. The tragedy inspires the song "Rock 'N' Roll Widow."
1969Rock guitarist Dweezil Zappa is born Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa in Los Angeles, California, to singer/songwriter Frank Zappa and his wife, Gail.
1969Country blues singer Josh White dies during a surgery to replace heart valves in Manhasset, New York, at age 55. Known for the 1944 hit "One Meat Ball."
1968Brad Wilk (drummer for Rage Against The Machine) is born in Portland, Oregon.
1968Tiny Tim sues Bouget Records, his first label, for releasing some of his early recordings without permission.
The Animals Take Folk Song "The House Of The Rising Sun" To #1
1964
British group The Animals hit #1 in America with "The House Of The Rising Sun," a folk song set in New Orleans about either a brothel or a prison.
Dating to the 1800s, the first recordings of "The House Of The Rising Sun" appeared in the 1930s. It's provenance is unknown, but "the house in New Orleans" is likely either the Orleans Parish women's prison or a brothel that was active in the 1860s. Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie and Dave Van Ronk all performed it; Bob Dylan included it on his 1962 debut album using Van Ronk's arrangement.
The Animals included the song in their live show, and when Chuck Berry came to England to tour with them in May 1964, it got a great response from the audience. The band pushed to record it for their first album. Their producer, Mickie Most, was against it, but he devoted about 15 minutes of studio time to banging out the song. When he heard the results, he insisted it be released as a single, something their record company was against because it came in at 4:29 - about 90 seconds longer than most pop songs. Most won that battle and the song was released as their second single. In July, it went to #1 in the UK; in September it topped the chart in America.
The Animals version, with the organ heavy in the mix, adds a rock/R&B flavor to the song, which Bob Dylan loves (his version is traditional folk). It convinces him to go electric, which he does on Side 1 of his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home, and at the Newport Folk Festival, where he shocks the crowd by plugging in.
The song is the first international hit produced by Mickie Most, and also the first British Invasion song not written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney to hit the top spot in the US ("A World Without Love" by Peter & Gordon got there first, but that was a Lennon/McCartney composition).
The Animals go on to a brief, but very successful career, calling it quits in 1968. Eric Burdon performs the song as a solo artist for the next five decades. "It was made for me and I was made for it," he tells Songfacts.
The Animals included the song in their live show, and when Chuck Berry came to England to tour with them in May 1964, it got a great response from the audience. The band pushed to record it for their first album. Their producer, Mickie Most, was against it, but he devoted about 15 minutes of studio time to banging out the song. When he heard the results, he insisted it be released as a single, something their record company was against because it came in at 4:29 - about 90 seconds longer than most pop songs. Most won that battle and the song was released as their second single. In July, it went to #1 in the UK; in September it topped the chart in America.
The Animals version, with the organ heavy in the mix, adds a rock/R&B flavor to the song, which Bob Dylan loves (his version is traditional folk). It convinces him to go electric, which he does on Side 1 of his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home, and at the Newport Folk Festival, where he shocks the crowd by plugging in.
The song is the first international hit produced by Mickie Most, and also the first British Invasion song not written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney to hit the top spot in the US ("A World Without Love" by Peter & Gordon got there first, but that was a Lennon/McCartney composition).
The Animals go on to a brief, but very successful career, calling it quits in 1968. Eric Burdon performs the song as a solo artist for the next five decades. "It was made for me and I was made for it," he tells Songfacts.
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