1956 - Fats Domino headlined the first day of a three-day concert organized by the DJ Alan Freed in Hartford, Connecticut. Over the course of the shows, 11 fans were arrested by overzealous police. It was a litmus test for rock concerts and their effect on young people, as psychiatrist Francis Braceland testified afterwards that rock music is "a communicable disease with music appealing to adolescent insecurity and driving teenagers to do outlandish things. It is cannibalistic and tribalistic."
1972 - The film of The Concert For Bangladesh, featuring George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton, premiered in New York. The event was the first benefit concert of this magnitude in world history, long before Live Aid and Farm Aid. The concert, which was administered by UNICEF, raised $243,418.51 to aid victims of famine and war in Bangladesh. To this day, sales of the album and DVD continue to benefit the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF.
1973 - U.S. immigration authorities ordered John Lennon to leave the United States within 60 days. Lennon then began a long battle to earn his Green Card, which he was finally granted on July 27, 1976.
2002 - The O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack, featuring a popular revival of the mountain ballad "Man of Constant Sorrow," takes bluegrass to #1 in America.
Filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen brought in producer T Bone Burnett to compile traditional bluegrass and country songs for the soundtrack before filming even began. Then he brought in an impressive array of talent to sing them, from Ralph Stanley to Allison Krauss.
This soundtrack is a powerful tribute not only to the time-honored but commercially ignored genres of bluegrass and mountain music, but helps spur new interest in it.
"Bluegrass will never be the same because of that record and the way that music was presented in that movie," said Allison Krauss. "T Bone, with the way he produced that record, kept his hands off it and left his fingerprints all over it. He had such respect for the people playing it, for the history of it, the history of roots music itself – he has such a love and passion for it in its truest form, and people responded to that." (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images for LAFCA)
Birthdays:
Ric Ocasek — the frontperson of the Cars — was born on this day in 1944. After the band broke up in the late ‘80s, Ocasek embarked on a solo career and produced music for artists including Weezer, Motion City Soundtrack, Nada Surf, and No Doubt.
Jimmy Miller, New York-born record producer and musician, was born on this day in 1942. He is best known for his lengthy association with The Rolling Stones, for whom he produced a string of singles and albums during the band's career: Beggars Banquet (1968), Let It Bleed (1969), Sticky Fingers (1971), Exile On Main Street (1972) and Goats Head Soup (1973).
Chaka Khan (born Yvette Marie Stevens) is 69.
Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz is 54.
On this Day In Music History is sourced from This Day in Music, Allmusic, Song Facts and Wikipedia.