1969 - Police in Moscow reported that thousands of public phone booths had been vandalized after thieves were stealing parts of the phones to convert their acoustic guitars to electric. A feature in a Russian youth magazine had shown details on how to do this.

1970 - The Australian western film Ned Kelly opened; it marked Mick Jagger's acting debut. Ned Kelly is forced by police persecution to become a bushranger, escaped convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who used the bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities.. He robs several banks and is eventually captured. He is hanged in Melbourne. The film, BTW, was poorly received.

1972 - Mott The Hoople releases "All The Young Dudes." This was written and produced by David Bowie, who originally offered them "Suffragette City". The lyrics were inspired by Bowie's vision of Mott the Hoople as a Clockwork Orange-style street gang and intended for The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. (Photo by Matt Carr/Getty Images)

1973 - More than 600,000 people turned out to see the Grateful Dead, The Allman Brothers Band, and The Band, in concert at the Summer Jam festival in Watkins Glen, N.Y. Once received the Guinness Book of World Records entry for "Largest audience at a pop festival." Tickets were $10.

1987 - The surviving members of The Beatles, together with Yoko Ono, sued Nike and Capitol Records over the use of "Revolution" in a sneaker commercial. Nike authorized the song through the group's US label, Capitol, and Michael Jackson, who owns the publishing. Nike doesn't back down and continues running the ads, which anger many Beatles fans but sell a lot of sneakers. The suit is later settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

2007- "Hey There Delilah" by Plain White T's hits #1 in America two years after it was first released. "Delilah" is the runner Delilah DiCrescenzo. She had met Plain White T's singer Tom Higgenson through a mutual friend. Higgenson was inspired to write the song after meeting her. Though trying to impress her with the song, the two were never in a relationship.

2014 - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers release Hypnotic Eye. Teeming with fuzz, overdriven organ, and hard four-four rhythms, a record that celebrates all the disreputable 45s created in garages so they could be played in garages.

2018 - Neil Diamond stops by the command post near his home in Basalt, Colorado, to play for firefighters and rescue personnel who have been battling wildfires in the area.

Birthdays:

Pink Floyd keyboardist and vocalist Rick Wright was born on this day in 1943. Wright performed on all but one of the group's albums including The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here and The Division Bell, and played on all of their tours. He passed away in 2008.

Singer-songwriter Jonathan Edwards (best known songs Sunshine & Shanty) is 75.

Simon Kirke, drummer in Free and Bad Company, 72.

On This Day In Music History is sourced from This Day in Music, Song Facts, Allmusic, and Wikipedia.

Calendar Events