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Featured Events
2005The White Stripes are the first to webcast a concert when their show at the Merriweather Post Pavilion in Maryland is streamed on NPR.org.
2004Legendary rock producer Phil Spector, best known for creating the "Wall Of Sound" on hits like The Ronettes' "Be My Baby" and The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," is indicted for the February 2003 murder of actress Lana Clarkson at his estate in Alhambra, California.
2000U2, whose video for "Where The Streets Have No Name" comes from a rooftop concert, play another roofie, this time atop the Clarence Hotel in Dublin to play their new songs "Beautiful Day" and "Elevation" for air on Top Of The Pops.
1995With gangsta rap drawing negative publicity, Time Warner sells their share of Interscope Records to the founders, Jimmy Iovine and Ted Field. The next release is Dogg Food by Tha Dogg Pound, which goes to #1 in America.
1986Cliff Burton (Metallica's second bassist) dies in a bus crash in Sweden during Metallica's Damage Inc. tour in support of the Master of Puppets album. Burton, age 24, is asleep in his bunk when the bus skids off the road. He is thrown from the window and crushed when the vehicle rolls over him.
1986The Beatles' re-released version of "Twist And Shout" peaks at #23 thanks to its use in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
1980Kurtis Blow becomes the first rapper to appear on Soul Train when he performs "The Breaks" on the show. Host Don Cornelius is flummoxed. "It doesn't make sense to old guys like me," he tells Kurtis in the interview segment.More27
In Music History
2016Bruce Springsteen publishes his autobiography, Born To Run. He started working on it after his 2009 performance at the Super Bowl halftime show.
2011Johnnie Wright (of Johnnie & Jack and the Tennessee Mountain Boys) dies in Madison, Wisconsin, at age 97.
2007Dale Houston (of Dale & Grace) dies of heart failure at age 67.
2006Bowing to the inevitable, Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, pulls his legislation reforming the nation's music licensing laws from the congressional agenda, saying he doesn't see how it could get through Congress.
2003Carly Simon sues the owners of New York's famous Dakota apartment complex, claiming they kept her $59,000 down payment after rejecting her rental application.
2001Singer Jonathan King, best known for his 1965 hit "Everyone's Gone To The Moon," is found guilty of molesting several young boys and sentenced to seven years in prison.
2000Quincy Jones' Listen Up Foundation donates $25,000 to five South Central Los Angeles youth organizations. The endowments, made in the names of the five teens who make up Listen Up's From South Central To South Africa youth delegation, are presented during a reception at the Creative Artists Agency in Beverly Hills. The five teens - Martha Gonzalez, JeJuana Johnson, Megan Yaleh Meaway, Hector Sanchez, and Omari Trice - traveled to the Orange Farm Township, outside of Johannesburg, South Africa, one of the country's most disadvantaged communities, to build homes for three South African families.
1994Egyptian-Canadian singer-songwriter Raffi releases Bananaphone, an album of children's music. Nothing very notable at the time seems apparent; however, the title song becomes a viral Internet craze in 2004 when a Flash animation featuring the song is posted on the website Newgrounds. After this, Raffi becomes internationally famous, and "Bananaphone" makes it onto the radio and later radio and TV shows including The Opie & Anthony Show, The Colbert Report, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann.
1990Marvin Gaye receives a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine Street.
1987Austin Carlile is born in Pensacola, Florida. He fronts the metal groups Attack! Attack!, and later, Of Mice & Men, leaving in 2016 when his genetic condition called Marfan syndrome becomes too much to bear.
1984Avril Lavigne is born in Belleville, Ontario, Canada. She is raised in Napanee, Ontario.
1984Alphaville releases "Forever Young."
1982Rapper Lil Wayne is born Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. in New Orleans, Louisiana. At age 9, he becomes the youngest member of Cash Money Records.
1981Gracie Fields dies on the island of Capri aged 81.
1979While performing (ominously) "Better Off Dead" at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles, Elton John collapses at his piano and is rushed offstage. He returns 15 minutes later to finish the show, citing "exhaustion" as the cause of his collapse.
Dylan Plays For Pope
1997
Bob Dylan plays "Knocking On Heaven's Door" and "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" for Pope John Paul II and an audience of 300,000 at the World Eucharist Congress in Bologna, Italy. For the 77-year-old Pope, it's a chance to connect with young people, and the pontiff does so by invoking Dylan's song "Blowin' In The Wind" during his sermon. Dylan's invite is not without controversy, as the future Pope Benedict fears the "rock prophet" and his music are at odds with the Roman Catholic faith.
Dylan joins a number of Italian pop musicians at the concert mass but is the main attraction for fans eager to watch him perform. He's also the object of ire for Cardinal Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, who will be better known as Pope Benedict XVI when he takes up the post in 2005. Although Dylan became a born-again Christian in 1979, even releasing two albums of religious music, Benedict brands his work - along with that of other rock and pop musicians - "anti-Christian," and labels him a false prophet. Benedict later recalls his misgivings about the event: "They had a completely different message from the one which the Pope had... There was reason to be skeptical - I was, and in some ways I still am - over whether it was really right to allow this type of 'prophet' to appear."
He does his best to stop the concert but the current pontiff obviously sees the value in Dylan's repertoire. "On the road of music this evening, Jesus met you. A representative of yours has just said on your behalf that the answer to the questions of your life is 'blowing in the wind,'" the frail Pope John Paul II tells the crowd. "It is true! But not in the wind which blows everything away in empty whirls, but the wind which is the breath and voice of the Spirit, a voice that calls and says: 'come!'"
The Dylan-infused sermon is a success and boosts the Pope's popularity with young Catholics, but it does nothing for Pope Benedict. During his nearly 8-year tenure, he'll ban guitars from Mass and cancel the Vatican's traditional Christmas concert that typically invited a range of pop stars.
He does his best to stop the concert but the current pontiff obviously sees the value in Dylan's repertoire. "On the road of music this evening, Jesus met you. A representative of yours has just said on your behalf that the answer to the questions of your life is 'blowing in the wind,'" the frail Pope John Paul II tells the crowd. "It is true! But not in the wind which blows everything away in empty whirls, but the wind which is the breath and voice of the Spirit, a voice that calls and says: 'come!'"
The Dylan-infused sermon is a success and boosts the Pope's popularity with young Catholics, but it does nothing for Pope Benedict. During his nearly 8-year tenure, he'll ban guitars from Mass and cancel the Vatican's traditional Christmas concert that typically invited a range of pop stars.
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