1967 - Otis Redding went into the studio to record "(Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay". Though the song skyrocketed to the top of the R&B and pop charts in the months after its release, Redding didn't get to enjoy its success as he died in a plane crash three days after recording the song. The hit was Otis's largest-selling to date. Redding wrote the first verse of the song, under the abbreviated title 'Dock of the Bay', on a houseboat at Waldo Point in Sausalito, California a short time after his appearance at The Monterey pop festival. Redding's familiar whistling, heard before the song's fade was the singer fooling around, he had intended to return to the studio at a later date to add words in place of the whistling. The immensely popular song has been covered by dozens of performers such as Cher, Bob Dylan, Widespread Panic, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Pearl Jam, Garth Brooks and Justin Timberlake. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for Otis Redding 75th Birthday Celebration)
1974 - Carl Douglas started a two-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. singles chart with "Kung Fu Fighting". The song was recorded in 10 minutes (with just two takes), and had started out as a B-side but went on to sell 11 million records worldwide, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time.
2014 - Pink Floyd's classic album The Dark Side Of The Moon made a surprise return to the Billboard chart when it landed at No. 13 thanks to ultra-cheap pricing in the Google Play store where the album was discounted to 99 cents. Although it held the No. 1 spot in the U.S. for only a week when released in 1973, it remained in the Billboard album chart for 741 weeks.
2015 - David Bowie made his last public appearance when he attended the opening night of the Lazarus production at the New York Theatre Workshop in Manhattan. Tickets to the entire run of the musical sold out within hours of being made available. The musical is inspired by Walter Tevis's novel "The Man Who Fell to Earth", and Bowie previously starred in the 1976 film adaptation of the same name, directed by Nicolas Roeg.
2016 - Greg Lake, who fronted both King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer, died at age 69 after a battle with cancer. Jimi Hendrix considered joining ELP in their earliest incarnation, and if this had happened, the band would've been known as HELP.
Birthdays:
Harry Chapin ("Cats in the Cradle") was born today in 1942.
Tom Waits is 71.
Psychedelic Furs bass player Tim Butler is 62.
On This Day In Music History is sourced from This Day in Music, Paul Shaffer's Day in Rock, Song Facts and Wikipedia.