1958 - The popular disc jockey Alan Freed hosted a concert at the Boston Arena (a hockey rink) featuring Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly. Accounts vary, but the crowd rushed the stage at various times, and Freed kept imploring them to sit down. Freed was forced to stop the show, telling the crowd, "It looks like the Boston police don't want you to have a good time." Violence erupted and spilled over to the streets. Boston did not host another rock concert until 1964, when the Beatles came through. It was the 50's folks...
1974 - Led Zeppelin launches its Swan Song label. The deal was announced in January 1974. Months later they settled on the name Swan Song for their new venture. “We went through all the usual ones, all the ones that twist off your tongue right away, like Slut and Slag: the sort of name one would associate with us touring America," singer Robert Plant told the New Music Express that year. "But that’s not how we want to be remembered. We want something really nice.”
Maggie Bell, formerly of Stone the Crows and best known for her cameo on Rod Stewart's "Every Picture Tells a Story," was the first act to sign at the label.
1976 - Paul McCartney's Wings Over America Tour opened in Fort Worth, Texas. It was his first US tour since the days of The Beatles. Those dates would go on to form the lavish triple-album set that bore the tour’s title. It documented a combination of hits from the Wings era, and Beatles songs that audiences had never heard performed live before. They included “Yesterday,” “Blackbird,” “Lady Madonna,” and “The Long and Winding Road.”
1986 - Robert Palmer went to No.1 with 'Addicted To Love.' Palmer originally recorded the song as a duet with Chaka Khan but due to contractual problems her voice was removed.
2006 - Bob Dylan's first hosted radio show airs on XM Satellite Radio, with the legend playing favorite tracks by Prince, Wilco, Blur, LL Cool J, and Billy Bragg, among others.
Birthdays:
Bing Crosby was born today in 1903.
American folk singer and social activist Pete Seeger was born on this day in 1919.
James Brown was born today in 1933. "Soul Brother Number One," "The Godfather of Soul," "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business," "Mr. Dynamite" -- those are mighty titles, but no one can question that James Brown earned them more than any other performer. Other singers were more popular, others were equally skilled, but few other musicians were so influential over the course of popular music. Through the gospel-impassioned fury of his vocals and the complex polyrhythms of his beats, Brown was a crucial midwife in not just one, but two revolutions in American music; he was one of the figures most responsible for turning R&B into soul and he was, most would agree, the one figure most responsible for transforming soul music into funk. (Photo by Getty Images)
Four Seasons frontman Frankie Valli is 88.
Christopher Cross is 71.
David Ball is 63. A producer and electronic musician who with Soft Cell had the hit, 'Tainted Love', (an obscure 1965 northern soul track originally released by Gloria Jones, the girlfriend of Marc Bolan).
Josh Tillman is 41. He is the drummer for Fleet Foxes before going solo as Father John Misty.
On this Day In Music History is sourced from Udiscovermusic, Ultimate Classic Rock, Allmusic, This Day in Music, Song Facts and Wikipedia.