1931 - The first long-playing record, a 331⁄3 rpm recording, was demonstrated at the Savoy Plaza Hotel in New York by RCA Victor. Given the high price of compatible record players, which started around $95 (about $1140 in today's dollars), the LP wasn't revived until 1948.
1967 - The Doors appeared on Ed Sullivan's Sunday-night variety program. Sullivan asked Jim Morrison to omit or alter the lyric, "Girl, we couldn't get much higher" in "Light My Fire." Morrison, to his credit, ignored Sullivan's request. As a result, however, the Doors were not invited back to the program.
1969 - Media on both sides of the Atlantic were running stories that Paul McCartney was dead. He was supposedly killed in a car crash in Scotland on Nov. 9, 1966, and that a double had been taking his place for public appearances ever since. It turned out that Paul and his then-girlfriend Jane Asher were on vacation in Kenya at the time of the purported crash. That, and the fact that Paul McCartney is alive proved the stories incorrect. The rumour began circulating around 1967, but grew in popularity after being reported on American college campuses in late 1969. Proponents based the theory on perceived clues found in Beatles songs and album covers. Clue-hunting proved infectious, and within a few weeks had become an international phenomenon.
1978 - The video for Queen's single "Bicycle Race" was filmed at Wimbledon Stadium in south London. It featured 65 naked female professional models racing around the stadium's track on bicycles that had been rented for the film shoot. When the rental company found out how the bikes had been used, it reportedly demanded payment to replace all the bicycle seats.
1982 - Pink Floyd's seminal double album The Wall makes it to the big screen as a feature-length musical. Few expected the sprawling concept album to be turned into a feature film, but the band's celluloid collaboration with director Alan Parker and animator Gerald Scarfe becomes a surprise box office hit and a cult classic. (Photo by MJ Kim/Getty Images)
1991 - Rob Tyner, lead singer of the incendiary Detroit band, MC5 ("Kick out the Jams, Mo-fos") died of a heart attack at age 46.
2010 - American singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer, Alex Chilton died in hospital of heart problems in New Orleans aged 59. To some, he was a classic hitmaker from the '60s with the Box Tops. To others, he was a genius British-style pop musician and songwriter with Big Star. To yet another audience, he was a doomed and despairing artist who spent several years battling the bottle and delivering anarchist records and performances while thumbing his nose at all pretenses of stardom, a quirky iconoclast whose influence spawned the likes of the Replacements and Teenage Fanclub.
Birthdays:
Baz Luhrmann is 59. While best known as a filmmaker, Baz Luhrmann also reached the pop charts in 1999 with the spoken word novelty hit "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)."
1950 - Fee Waybill (lead singer/songwriter for The Tubes) is 71.
Hank Williams Sr. was born on this day in 1923. He passed in 1953. The father of contemporary country music. He was a superstar by the age of 25; he was dead at the age of 29. In those four short years, he established the rules for all the country performers who followed him and, in the process, much of popular music. Hank wrote a body of songs that became popular classics, and his direct, emotional lyrics and vocals became the standard for most popular performers.
Keith Flint of The Prodigy was born on this day in 1969.
Hozier, Irish singer/songwriter is 32.
On This Day In Music History is sourced from This Day in Music, Song Facts, Allmusic, and Wikipedia.