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Featured Events
2013Glee star Cory Monteith is found dead in a Vancouver hotel room after accidentally ingesting a toxic combination of heroin and alcohol. The 31-year-old actor played Finn Hudson on the popular FOX musical series.
2008Joan Jett plays a murder victim on the "Reunion" episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Her character hosts a show called Rock 'n Talk before she meets her demise.
1996At Riverfront Park in Nashville, Chet Atkins, Steve Earle and the Goo Goo Dolls join about 1000 other guitarists to jam on "Heartbreak Hotel" for nearly 80 minutes. They come up short in their bid to break the record for largest jam session, set in 1994 when 1,320 guitarists played "Takin' Care Of Business" in Vancouver.
1942Roger McGuinn of The Byrds is born in Chicago, Illinois.
1897A US patent is granted to inventor Guglielmo Marconi for transmitting electrical signals, leading to the invention of radio.
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In Music History
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2011Songwriter Jerry Ragovoy dies of a stroke at age 80. Under the pseudonym Norman Meade, he co-wrote "Time Is On My Side," made famous by the Rolling Stones.
2004Jimmy Buffett releases License To Chill, his 21st studio album. It's mostly a collection of duets with fellow country stars, including Martina McBride, Kenny Chesney, and George Strait. It's also his first album to go to #1 in the US.More
2004Arthur Kane of the New York Dolls dies of leukemia at age 55.
2003Broadway singer Eileen Rodgers dies of lung cancer at age 73.
2000James Brown is formally charged with assaulting Russell Eubanks, an employee of South Carolina Electric and Gas, with a steak knife after Eubanks visited Brown's Beech Island estate to check on reports that he was without electricity.
1992Jett Williams, illegitimate daughter of country legend Hank Williams, is granted partial royalties of his songs by a New York appeals court, adding to a ruling reached on July 5 that she should receive half of his estate.
1991INXS play to a crowd of 72,000 at Wembley Stadium in London, six years to the day Live Aid was held there. It is later released as the live album and video Live Baby Live.
1985Howard Jones performs at London's Wembley Stadium as part of Live Aid. Jones sings his hit single "Hide and Seek" on Freddie Mercury's piano.
1985Piggybacking on Live Aid, top Australian acts play a benefit concert in Sydney called Oz For Africa. INXS, Little River Band and Men At Work are all on the bill.
1985David Bowie and Mick Jagger debut their video for "Dancing in the Street" at Live Aid. Bowie also performs "Heroes" at Wembley Stadium.
1985Tears for Fears bow out of performing at Live Aid, Bob Geldof's star-studded charity concert for famine relief in Africa, after two members of their band quit. The group donates concert funds to the cause, but feels the weight of Geldof's disapproval. TFF's Roland Orzabal says, "He made us feel very guilty. All those millions of people dying, it was all our fault. I felt terrible. I tell you, I know how Hitler must have felt."
1974George McRae's "Rock Your Baby" hits #1 for the first of two weeks.
1974Eric Clapton invites Todd Rundgren to play guitar during the encore of Clapton's concert at Madison Square Garden. Todd's guitar rig isn't working, so Clapton takes off his guitar, hands it to Todd, and steps aside to listen.
1974R&B singer Deborah Cox is born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, but grows up in Scarborough. She breaks into the music industry as a backup singer for Celine Dion in the early '90s.
1973Bob Dylan releases Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid, the soundtrack album for the Sam Peckinpah-directed movie of the same name.
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Live Aid: Rocking All Over The World
1985
The Live Aid concerts take place in Philadelphia and London to raise money for the hungry in Africa. The Beach Boys, The Four Tops, Paul McCartney, Tina Turner, Elton John, David Bowie, The Who, Queen, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan all take part.
Live Aid is the brainchild of The Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof and Midge Ure of Ultravox. Billed as "The Global Jukebox," the all-day charity concert is held to raise money for relief efforts after a devastating famine in Ethiopia. The concert spans across two stages in two continents: JFK Stadium in Philadelphia and London's Wembley Stadium. As well as the 100,000 fans in the USA and 72,000 in the UK, the event is broadcast live across the world to an audience of around 2 billion people in 150 nations.
After seeing a news report on the drought and famine that swept across war-torn Ethiopia, Geldof was spurred into action and organized the recording of a single featuring dozens of British stars. The result: Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?." American artists answered under the name USA for Africa with "We Are The World." Money raised from these projects was sent to the stricken African nation, but only served as short-term relief. Geldof is now looking to raise money for more sustainable aid efforts.
Live Aid is designed as a global event, and intended to play out on television. Indeed, the majority of fans in Wembley Stadium have to watch the events unfold on giant video screens, as they are too far away to make out the stars on the stage. Early plans for a live link-up between David Bowie in Philadelphia and Mick Jagger in London have to be canned due to technical limitations, so instead a video clip is recorded for simultaneous broadcast on both continents.
Status Quo aptly open the 16-hour spectacle in London with "Rocking All Over The World," followed by over 70 acts across the stages on both sides of the Atlantic. Highlights include Queen's Freddie Mercury engaging the 72,000 strong crowd in a mass-singalong and David Bowie and Mick Jagger performing "Dancing in the Street" as a duet.
The hardest-working artist of the day is undoubtedly Phil Collins, who performs his set, then teams up with Sting to perform "Long Long Way To Go" and "Every Breath You Take," before jumping on a jet for an 8-hour flight to Philadelphia, where he then plays "Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)" and "In The Air Tonight" before jumping behind the drums for Led Zeppelin, who have reformed for the event.
Estimates vary as to the total raised by the concerts, but most agree the figure is at least $50 million. How much of that money reached the Ethiopian people is unclear; in 1986 Spin magazine issues a scathing report claiming that the money did more harm than good, with lots of it ending up in the pockets of Ethiopia's corrupt Head of State Mengistu Haile Mariam.
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