1965 - Bob Dylan's single "Subterranean Homesick Blues" was released in the U.S.
This song skips from one cultural reference to the next. It touches on social discontent, drug busts, violent policing witnessed at civil rights protests, and the fight against authority.
The promotional clip for this song is arguably one of the most famous music videos of all time.
"Don't follow leaders/Watch the parkin' meters"
(Photo by DANIEL JANIN / AFP) (Photo by DANIEL JANIN/AFP via Getty Images)
1969 - The Small Faces split up after singer Steve Marriott announced he was leaving the band. Marriott Forms Humble Pie while Ronnie Lane, Ian McLagan and Kenny Jones linked up with Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart and formed The Faces.
1969 - "Happy Birthday" becomes the first song to be performed in outer space when the astronauts on Apollo IX sing it to celebrate the birthday of the director of NASA space operations, Christopher Kraft.
1973 - Grateful Dead keyboard player Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, a founding member of the band, dies at age 27.
Nicknamed "Pigpen" for his funky approach to life and sanitation, starting a rock band was actually his idea, and he was its first front man. His father was an R & B disc jockey and that sound put Pig's life on the rails of Liquor, Lightnin' Hopkins, the harmonica and some barbecue.
"Pigpen was the only guy in the band who had any talent when we were starting out". - Jerry Garcia
1994 - Two influential albums from the '90s were released: Soundgarden's Superunknown and Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral. They enter the albums chart at #1 and #2, respectively. Superunknown included "Black Hole Sun" and Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral included their most controversial single, "Closer", and Grammy nominated single "Hurt". Interesting side note: Johnny Cash would cover Hurt on American IV: The Man Comes Around.
2016 - Record producer, arranger, composer, conductor, audio engineer and musician, Sir George Martin died aged 90. He worked as EMI records in-house record producer and became known as the so-called fifth Beatle. Martin produced all but one of The Beatles albums. He also produced many other acts including: Jeff Beck, Ultravox, Kenny Rogers, UFO, Cheap Trick, Elton John and Celine Dion.
Birthdays:
Jazz pianist/composer Dick Hyman is 96. Over his 70-year career, he was a session player, performer, and composed several film scores for Woody Allen films. In the 1960s, Hyman recorded pop albums, recording several albums on the Moog Synthesizer. Beck sampled the whistling intro of “The Moog and Me” for the song “Sissyneck” on the 1996 album Odelay.
George Michael "Micky" Dolenz, singer and drummer for The Monkees, is 78. Micky Dolenz has distinguished himself as an actor, director, musician, and radio personality, but he'll always be best known as the drummer and frequent lead vocalist with the Monkees.
Gary Numan is 65. One of the founding fathers of synth pop, Gary Numan has influenced countless artists with his constantly evolving form of dystopian electronic rock music since the late 1970s.
Shawn Mullins is 55. An Atlanta-based folksinger best known for his Top Ten hit "Lullaby," Shawn Mullins was serving as a member of the U.S. Army Airborne Infantry Division when he released his first self-titled cassette in 1989. Following the release of 1991's Everchanging World, he left the military after eight years of service to pursue music on a full-time basis.
On This Day In Music History was sourced from Allmusic, This Day in Music, Grateful Dead Net, Song Facts and Wikipedia.