1969 - Joe Cocker, former Colorado resident, made his U.S. television debut, appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS. Together with the Grease Band, Cocker performed a cover of Traffic's "Feelin' Alright."
1976 - After a trip to Moscow, David Bowie was detained in vain on a train at the Poland-Russian border by customs officers who didn't appreciate his collection of Nazi books and mementos. Bowie claimed he was researching a film on Joseph Goebbels, and was released after a few hours.
1987 - U2 make the cover of Time magazine with the headline "Rock's Hottest Ticket."
2003 - Iggy Pop reunited with The Stooges for the first time in 30 years to close out the Coachella festival. Originally formed in 1967 in Ann Arbor, Mich.,the Stooges sold few records in their original incarnation, and often performed for indifferent or hostile audiences, but are nevertheless widely regarded as instrumental in the rise of punk rock, as well as influential to alternative rock, heavy metal and rock music at large.
2006 - Keith Richards fell out of a palm tree while vacationing in Fiji and went to the hospital with a concussion, creating a rare news event on the island. As it turns out, Richards had fractured his skull in the tree-branch incident. This caused an intracranial hemorrhage (e.g., bleeding in the skull), which in turn produced acute subdural hematoma (e.g., blood clots between the brain and its outer protective layer) and led to an emergency flight to New Zealand for treatment.
2012 - Bob Dylan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, which is the highest honor awarded to a United States civilian citizen. Dylan is only the 29th musician to receive the award. Previous recipients include Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin, and Irving Berlin.
Birthdays:
Casey Kasem was born on this day in 1932. DJ, host of American Top 40 and was the voice of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo
Ann Peebles (1973 hit single "I Can't Stand The Rain") is 74.
Pete Ham, Badfinger, was born on this date in 1947.
Kate Pierson of The B-52's is 73. Seemingly born with a political consciousness, Pierson was a serious Bob Dylan fan in junior high, and was a member of a local folk group that specialized in protest material. However, Pierson's tastes expanded to include rock & roll after the Beatles made their way to America. The cheerfully countercultural Pierson left New Jersey for Athens, Georgia in the '70s, where she hoped to do "a back-to-the-land thing, raise goats and be out in the country." But fate had other plans; in 1976, Pierson made friends with a handful of Athens bohemians named Fred Schneider, Keith Strickland, Cindy Wilson, and Ricky Wilson, and one evening after a party at a Chinese restaurant turned into a jam session, they decided to form a band. Calling themselves the B-52's (the name adopted from local slang for the over the top beehive hairdos that were still common in the South and were adopted on-stage by Kate and Cindy). (Photo by Mark Wieland/Getty Images)
Paul "Ace" Frehley of Kiss is 70.
Sheena Easton is 62.
Supergrass keyboard player Rob Coombes is 49.
On This Day In Music History is sourced from This Day in Music, Paul Shaffer's Day in Rock, Song Facts, Ultimate Classic Rock, Allmusic, and Wikipedia.