1963 - 19-year-old Andrew Loog Oldham, who did some PR work for The Beatles, checks out The Rollin' Stones at a show in Richmond, England. He becomes their manager a little later and makes them add the "g." Oldham saw potential in the group being positioned as an "anti-Beatles"—a rougher group compared to the "cuddly moptop" image of the Beatles at that time. He generated widely reprinted headlines like "Would You Let Your Sister Go with a Rolling Stone?"
1968 - The Broadway musical Hair opened at the Biltmore Theatre in New York City. The show featured the songs "Aquarius / Let the Sunshine In", "Good Morning Starshine" and the title song. The production ran for 1,729 performances, finally closing on July 1, 1972. It was an observation of the hippie counterculture and sexual revolution of the late 1960s, and several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement. The musical's profanity, its depiction of the use of illegal drugs, its treatment of sexuality, its irreverence for the American flag, and its nude scene caused much comment and controversy. The musical broke new ground in musical theatre by defining the genre of "rock musical", using a racially integrated cast, and inviting the audience onstage for a "Be-In" finale.
1973 - Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd went to No. 1 on the U.S. album charts. The album stayed a record-breaking 741 discontinuous weeks on the Billboard chart, and has now sold over 45 million copies worldwide. A concept album, The Dark Side of the Moon explores themes such as conflict, greed, time, death and mental illness. Snippets from interviews with the band's road crew are featured alongside philosophical quotations. The sleeve, which depicts a prism spectrum, was designed by Storm Thorgerson in response to keyboardist Richard Wright's request for a "simple and bold" design, representing the band's lighting and the album's themes.
1976 - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band appeared at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, the first time a rock band has played the Opry since The Byrds in 1968.
1979 - Blondie's Heart Of Glass hits No. 1. Blondie members Debbie Harry and Chris Stein (who were a couple) wrote the first version of this song in early 1974, shortly after they first met. They didn't have a proper title for the song, and would refer to it as "The Disco Song." Harry explained on the show Words and Music: "Lyrically, it was about a stalker who was pursuing me, and Chris saved me from him."
1982 - The California State Assembly consumer-protection-committee heard testimony from "experts" who claimed that when "Stairway To Heaven" was played backward, contained the words: "I sing because I live with Satan. The Lord turns me off, there's no escaping it. Here's to my sweet Satan, whose power is Satan. He will give you 666. I live for Satan."
1998 - Before These Crowded Streets by the Dave Matthews Band debuted at No.1 on the US albums chart, ending the Titanic soundtrack's 16-week run at the top. It's the first album to fully capture the adventurous spirit from their live shows. Here, everything hangs out. Old trademarks, like jittery acoustic grooves and jazzy chords, are here, augmented by complex polyrhythms, Mideastern dirges, and on two tracks, the slashing strings of the Kronos Quartet. (Photo by Matt Roberts/Getty Images)
1999 - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
2003 - Apple launches iTunes, which becomes the first widely-successful legal music download site, thanks to the emergence of the iPod, which lets people take their music with them. At first, the service was available only to Mac users and the music files were encoded in Apple's proprietary format restricting where they could be played.
Birthdays:
Muscle Shoals keyboardist Chuck Leavell is 69. He recorded and toured with the Rolling Stones, the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton and many others.
Kim Gordon, bassist, guitarist and vocalist of Sonic Youth, is 68.
West coast hip hop pioneer Too $hort is 55.
On This Day In Music History are sourced from This Day in Music, Paul Shaffer's Day in Rock, Song Facts, Allmusic and Wikipedia.