ON THIS DAY IN MUSIC HISTORY: 6.17.21

1971 - Carole King went to No.1 on the with ‘Tapestry’ for the first of 15 consecutive weeks. It's one of the most successful albums in pop music history. A remarkably expressive and intimate record, it's a work of consummate craftsmanship. The album contained ‘It's Too Late’, ‘I Feel the Earth Move’, ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’’ and ‘You've Got a Friend’.

1972 - Grateful Dead keyboard player and founding member Ron "Pigpen" McKernan played his last show with the band at a Hollywood Bowl concert. Health problems forced him to stop touring, and he died in March, 1973 at age 27.

1972 - The Rolling Stones album Exile on Main Street started a four-week run at the top of the US charts. The double album, regularly regarded as one of the band's best. A sprawling, weary double album encompassing rock & roll, blues, soul, and country that sets a remarkably high standard for all of hard rock.

1973 - Dolly Parton recorded "I Will Always Love You" in RCA's Studio B in Nashville. It was written as a farewell for her one-time partner and mentor, Porter Wagoner, as Parton was breaking off their creative partnership to make her own way as a solo musician. The song reached No. 1 twice - first when it was released in 1974, and then again when she rerecorded it as a part of the movie The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas in 1982. But the song made a legendary splash when Whitney Houston recorded her version for the 1992 film The Bodyguard. Her version of the song spent 14 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart making it one of the best-selling singles of all time. (Photo by Valerie Macon/Getty Images)

2012 - Bruce Springsteen played his longest show when he turned in a three-hour-and-48-minute, 32-song set at the Bernabeu Stadium in Madrid.

Birthdays:

Barry Manilow is 78.

Jello Biafra of the Dead Kennedys is 63. While the DKs formed in San Francisco, Jello, (born Eric Boucher) was from Boulder. Biafra ran for mayor of San Francisco on a bet; his platform included holding auctions for high-ranking city government positions, setting up a board of bribery to handle liquor licenses and building codes, banning automobiles in the city limits, forcing businessmen to dress in clown suits, and allowing vagrants legal access to empty buildings. (Voters apparently found the satire compelling enough to place Biafra fourth out of ten candidates.)

Kendrick Lamar is 34.

On This Day In Music History are gathered from This Day in Music, Almusic, Song Facts and Wikipedia.


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