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Featured Events
1996J-Bird Records, the first Internet record label, opens for business, offering previews using Real Audio and Shockwave. Clients include Mitch Ryder and Billy Squier, but the label folds a few years later.
1995"Exhale (Shoop Shoop)" by Whitney Houston hits #1 on the Hot 100. The song appears on the soundtrack to the film Waiting To Exhale, which stars Houston.
1992In her first film role, Whitney Houston plays a pop diva under the protection of Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard. The highlight of the movie is Houston's rendition of "I Will Always Love You," which hits #1 three days after the movie's release.More
1989Thanks to a video that gets Alice Cooper his first significant spins on MTV, "Poison" hits #7 - the rocker's first Top 40 hit in nine years.
1967"Incense And Peppermints" by Strawberry Alarm Clock hits #1 in America. The song is co-written by the band's guitarist, Ed King, who later joins Lynyrd Skynyrd.
1960Amy Grant is born in Augusta, Georgia. The Christian singer makes a controversial transition to secular music with the #1 pop singles "The Next Time I Fall" (a 1986 duet with Peter Cetera) and "Baby Baby."
25
In Music History
2015Alicia Keys begins her two-episode stint as Skye Summers on the hip-hop-centered TV series Empire.
2013Gary dos Santos, known as the "Mayor of Strawberry Fields," dies at age 49 after a battle with leukemia. Dos Santos ruled over the Strawberry Fields section of Central Park, dedicated to the memory of John Lennon. He helped keep order and decorum in the area, arranged flowers at the memorial, and greeted tourists who came by.
2013Beastie Boys sue the toy company GoldieBlox for running an online ad featuring little girls singing an altered version of their song "Girls" (the group has never allowed their songs to be licensed for advertising). The suit is settled on March 19, 2014, with GoldieBlox issuing an apology and making a donation to charity.
2011Blues musician Coco Robicheaux dies in New Orleans, Louisiana, at age 64.
2008A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!, the soundtrack to the Christmas comedy special of the same name starring Stephen Colbert, is released on iTunes. Most of the songs featured on the album were written by comedy writer David Javerbaum and Adam Schlesinger, who is the bass player for Fountains of Wayne. The album will go on to win the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.
2006Mexican banda music singer Valentin Elizalde is gunned down in his car after a concert performance, presumably by a gang of drug traffickers, at age 27. Elizalde often sang narcocorridos, "drug ballads" that have been compared to gangster rap.
2005Country music makes itself comfortable all around New York when the Country Music Association holds its 39th annual CMA Awards show at Madison Square Garden.
2003Meat Loaf undergoes surgery to correct an irregular heartbeat.
1999Clint Black is on hand to help the Salvation Army launch its annual holiday fundraising drive. Black entertains during the third annual "National Kettle Kick-off," a half-time event at the Dallas Cowboys' football game.
1997Blues singer and guitarist Fenton Robinson dies of complications from brain cancer in Rockford, Illinois, at age 62. Known for his signature song, "Somebody Loan Me a Dime" (1967).
1997The original Zombies lineup -- Rod Argent on organ, Colin Blunstone on vocals, Paul Atkinson on guitar, Chris White on bass, and Hugh Grundy on drums -- reunites onstage for the first time in 30 years at London's Jazz Cafe, performing two songs only: "She's Not There" and "Time Of The Season" to promote their new box set Zombie Heaven.
1997Garth Brooks releases Sevens.
19972Pac's R U Still Down? (Remember Me) is released posthumously.
1988Having successfully completed their stint in an Arizona rehab clinic for alcoholism, Ringo Starr and his second wife, actress Barbara Bach, return to England.
1984In London, Bono, George Michael, David Bowie, Jody Watley, Paul McCartney and a passel of other stars record vocals for "Do They Know It's Christmas?," the first big all-star charity single. Released a week later (in time for Christmas), it becomes a holiday favorite and raises over $14 million for famine relief in Africa.
The Band Say Farewell With The Last Waltz.
1976Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Neil Diamond, The Staple Singers, Ronnie Hawkins, and Dr. John join The Band for The Last Waltz, a farewell concert for the ages.
After more than 15 years of making music together, Robbie Robertson suggests to fellow Band members Garth Hudson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, and Richard Manuel that they should call it quits. Their career has been financially and artistically successful, with six studio albums, countless stage hours, and collaborations with legends Bob Dylan and Ronnie Hawkins under their belts, but the excesses of the rock and roll lifestyle have been hard on them. Robertson fears they will self-destruct physically and creatively if they don't step back from it all. They decide to hold a final farewell concert at San Francisco's Winterland Ballroom, the site of their very first performance together as The Band, way back in 1969. The show will be a celebration shared with their musical peers. Martin Scorsese, Band friend and fan, agrees to film the event. Production designer Boris Leven acquires the set of Verdi's La Traviata from the San Francisco Opera and has it set up as the stage backdrop. Robertson gets his '59 Stratocaster guitar dipped in bronze, "like baby shoes," for the occasion. Before the show, Thanksgiving dinner is served to the 5,000 attendees, a feat requiring 6,000 pounds of turkey and 400 pounds of pumpkin pie. Once the show begins, the Band shares the stage with some of the biggest acts of the era. Neil Young and Joni Mitchell sing "Helpless" together. Van Morrison rips through "Caravan." Eric Clapton hits "Further Up the Road." Bob Dylan leads a mass jam of "I Shall Be Released," which is intended to be the final song. When the crowd refuses to let it end, the musicians head out and finish things off with "Don't Do It." The show goes down as a high-water mark of both rock concerts and rock documentaries after Scorsese's The Last Waltz is released on April 26, 1978. Months later the Band publishes Islands, an album of their unreleased songs, but they never record new material or perform in public again. In 1989, the Band is inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. Five years later, they gain entry into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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