1966 - The Doors started recording their first album at Sunset Sound Recording Studios on West Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.
It would be a tremendous debut album, and indeed one of the best first-time outings in rock history, introducing the band's fusion of rock, blues, classical, jazz, and poetry with a knockout punch.
1975 - Queen started recording "Bohemian Rhapsody" at Rockfield studios in Monmouth, Wales, (the song was recorded over three weeks). Freddie Mercury mentally prepared the song beforehand and directed the band throughout the sessions. May, Mercury, and Taylor sang their vocal parts continually for ten to twelve hours a day, resulting in 180 separate overdubs.
1979 - The Ramones' movie "Rock & Roll High School" opened in theaters. The title song became one of their classics, and the film gained a cult following. The movie is set in 1980. Vince Lombardi High School keeps losing principals to nervous breakdowns because of the students' love of rock 'n' roll and their disregard for education.
1981 - Mark Chapman was given a 20 year jail sentence for the murder of John Lennon. The 25 year old had shot Lennon five times at close range on December 8th, 1980 in front of The Dakota apartment building in New York City.
1982 - The Rolling Stones released Tattoo You. The big hit from the album was "Start Me Up," which they first recorded with a reggae rhythm in 1977. That version was scrapped, but they rocked it up for Tattoo You with better results. Like Emotional Rescue before it, Tattoo You was comprised primarily of leftovers, but unlike its predecessor, it never sounds that way. Instead, Tattoo You captures the Stones at their best as a professional stadium-rock band.
1995 - Microsoft launched the Windows 95 operating system. The start-up music was composed by Brian Eno, former member of Roxy Music and a pioneer in ambient music. Eno said that he found the task funny and then addictive, considering the amount of adjectives in the brief (inspiring, universal, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional) compared to the short 3f seconds it had to last. Ironically, he created the final pieces (he ended up making 84 in total) using a Macintosh, rather than a PC. (Photo credit PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU/AFP via Getty Images)
1994 - Jeff Buckley's first and only album, Grace. It's is an audacious debut album, filled with sweeping choruses, bombastic arrangements, searching lyrics, and above all, the richly textured voice of Buckley himself, which resembled a cross between Robert Plant, Van Morrison, and his father Tim. And that's a fair starting point for his music: Grace sounds like a Led Zeppelin album written by an ambitious folkie with a fondness for lounge jazz.
Birthdays:
Blues artist Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup, writer of Elvis Presley's hit, "That's All Right (Mama)", was born today in 1905. He passed away in 1974.
Mason Williams, classical guitarist, composer, writer, comedian and poet is 83.
On This Day In Music History is sourced from This Day in Music, Song Facts, Allmusic and Wikipedia.