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Featured Events
2016Michael Stipe, Cyndi Lauper, Ann Wilson and Perry Farrell are among the performers at a Carnegie Hall concert honoring David Bowie.More
2000The movie High Fidelity, starring John Cusack and Jack Black as record store clerks, and featuring a cameo by Bruce Springsteen, opens in theaters.More
199523-year-old Tejano singer Selena dies after being shot by her former personal assistant and former fan club president, Yolanda Saldivar, in Corpus Christi, Texas. Jennifer Lopez stars in a movie about her life that is released in 1997.
1992Bruce Springsteen releases two albums, Human Touch and Lucky Town.
1984Kenny Loggins' "Footloose" hits #1 in America. It's the title song to the soon-to-be-famous film where Kevin Bacon brings dancing to a small town in the South.
1958Chuck Berry releases "Johnny B. Goode." The song is named after his piano player (Johnnie Johnson) and the street where he grew up (Goode Avenue).
1955Angus Young is born in Glasgow, Scotland. He later moves to Australia and forms AC/DC with his brother Malcolm.
31
In Music History
2015British jazz pianist Ralph Sharon, who brought "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" to Tony Bennett, dies in Boulder, Colorado, at age 91.
2009Lynyrd Skynyrd releases Live at the Cardiff Capitol Theatre. It features music recorded at Cardiff, Wales' Capitol Theatre on November 4, 1975. It's released alongside the album Authorized Bootleg: Live In Winterland, San Francisco, CA, 3/07/76.
2007Police issue arrest warrants for Country singer Billy Joe Shaver after he shoots and wounds a man outside a Lorena, Texas, bar. Shaver later turns himself in.
2003The Roots release Phrenology three years after their highly successful fourth album, Things Fall Apart. An ambitious work that pushes the boundaries of hip-hop, Phrenology also contains a hit: the Cody ChesnuTT collaboration "The Seed (2.0)."
2001Acker Bilk receives an MBE (Member of the British Empire) medal from Queen Elizabeth for services to the music industry.
1996After battling a number of health issues, Gun Club guitarist Jeffrey Lee Pierce dies at age 37.
199523-year-old Lance Cunningham injures four people at a Jimmy Page/Robert Plant concert in Auburn Hills, Michigan, when he tries to rush the stage with a pocketknife. Cunningham claims he was trying to attack Page, accusing him of being "Satanic."
1987Georg Listing (bassist for Tokio Hotel) is born in Halle, Germany.
1986O'Kelly Isley (of The Isley Brothers) dies of a heart attack at age 48 in Alpine, New Jersey.
1982After 12 years together, The Doobie Brothers announce their (temporary) breakup.
1981At the first ever Golden Raspberry Awards (aka The Razzies), Neil Diamond takes home the prize for Worst Actor for his performance as Yussel Rabinovitch in The Jazz Singer. Laurence Olivier, who played Cantor Rabinovitch in the film, also scores a Razzie for Worst Supporting Actor, an honor he shares with John Adames for Gloria.
1974Tom Petty marries his first wife, Jane Benyo. The couple met when they were both 17, which provides the title for the Stevie Nicks song "Edge Of Seventeen." They have two daughters before their divorce in 1996.
1973Elton John appears on the front page of Melody Maker, which proclaims, "Now Elton's A Teen Idol!"
1972The official Beatles fan club disbands.
Jimi Hendrix Sets Guitar On Fire
1967
At the Astoria Theatre in London, Jimi Hendrix sets fire to his guitar for the first time, and goes to the hospital after the show with minor burns. During the rest of the tour, Hendrix makes a habit of playing his guitar with his teeth, and he ignites his axe a few more times.
Despite Hendrix's reputation for destroying instruments during his performances, the audience can hardly be expecting such an inflammatory incident: The Jimi Hendrix Experience are at the bottom of the bill, opening up for three much tamer acts: The Walker Brothers, Cat Stevens and crooner Engelbert Humperdinck.
As the band perform their new song "Fire," Hendrix throws down his guitar onto the stage, creating an inferno of feedback. With the audience suitably distracted, band manager Chas Chandler covers the instrument with lighter fluid (which was dutifully purchased from the local store by a roadie earlier that day). Hendrix then strikes a series of matches until the Stratocaster is eventually engulfed in four-foot flames.
In the heat of the moment, Hendrix fails to realize that he has burned his hands, and after the blaze is extinguished, he completes the song using another guitar. After the show, he attends the local hospital for the treatment of minor burns.
The stunt was suggested by rock journalist Keith Altham, and it certainly fuels media coverage of the hot young star. The burning of a guitar becomes the centerpiece of many Experience shows from that point forward, most notably at Monterey later in the year where the stunt is caught on film.
In 2008, the charred remains of the Fender Stratocaster that was ignited in the Astoria show are auctioned, raising over half a million dollars.
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