1967 - In another great concert mismatch of the rock ages, The Who opened for Herman's Hermits on their first U.S. tour. It began in Portland, with The Who banging out Summertime Blues, Pictures Of Lilly, not to mention the guitar smashing finale, warming up the crowd so Peter Noone could sing 'I'm Henry the VIII, I Am.'
1969 - The movie Easy Rider, which opens with the heavy metal thunder of "Born To Be Wild," opens in theaters. The film stars Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper as motorcycle-riding free spirits. The soundtrack sells over 500,000 copies. Director Dennis Hopper didn't have much special music written, instead mostly using songs he'd heard on the radio in 1968 while he was editing the film. (In the liner notes to the 2000 CD reissue, Hopper claims that he canceled a proposed Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young score when he became enamored with his own selections; other accounts claim the film studio insisted on the music used in the rough cut.)
So, the film's music consisted of such 1968 rock radio favorites as Steppenwolf's "The Pusher" and "Born to Be Wild," the Band's "The Weight," the Byrds' "Wasn't Born to Follow," and the Jimi Hendrix Experience's "If Six Was Nine," with such humorous changes of pace as the Holy Modal Rounders' cosmic folk song "If You Want to Be a Bird" and Fraternity of Man's marijuana-smoking behavior guide "Don't Bogart Me."
1979 - Donna Summer scored her third No.1 US single with 'Bad Girls' the album of the same name. The inspiration for her to write the song came after one of her assistants was offended by a police officer who thought she was a street prostitute.
1980 - The combustible couple Glen Campbell and Tanya Tucker open the Republican National Convention in Detroit with a duet of the National Anthem. Campbell later admits they were "higher than the notes we were singing."
2010 - Ann Kirsten Kennis, whose Polaroid photo is on the cover of Vampire Weekend's #1 album Contra, files a $2 million lawsuit against the band, their label, and the photographer, claiming she never granted permission to use it. She later settles with the band. The photo was taken in 1983 when Kennis was auditioning for a commercial. The band saw it on Flickr, but the guy who posted it didn't have the rights. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for Radio.com)
Birthdays:
Woodrow "Woody" Guthrie, was born in Okemah, Okla., today in 1912. He passed away in 1967. The most important American folk music artist of the first half of the 20th century, in part because he turned out to be such a major influence on the popular music of the second half of the 20th century, a period when he himself was largely inactive. That was due to the fact that as Guthrie's health declined to the point of permanent hospitalization in the '50s. His career took off through his songs and his example, which served as inspiration for the folk revival in general and, in the early '60s, Bob Dylan in particular.
Tanya Donelly, singer for The Breeders, Throwing Muses, and Belly, is 55.
Dan Reynolds of Imagine Dragons is 34.
Dan Smith front guy of Bastille is 35.
On This Day In Music History is sourced from This Day in Music, Song Facts, Purple Clover.Little Things, Allmusic, and Wikipedia.