1965 - The Ford Motor Company became the first automaker to offer an 8-track tape player as an option for its entire line of new vehicles. Tapes were initially only available in auto-parts stores, as home 8-track equipment was still a year away.
1970 - Vice President Spiro Agnew said in a speech that the youth of America were being "brainwashed into a drug culture" by rock music, movies, books and underground newspapers.
1975 - Pink Floyd released album Wish You Were Here, a loose concept album about and dedicated to their founding member Syd Barrett. Before recording, the band returned to a project known as "Household Objects", an album that used, bottles, knives, making chords up from the tapping of beer bottles, tearing newspapers to get a rhythm, and letting off aerosol cans to get a hi-hat sound.” Nick Mason has since suggested that Household Objects was a “delaying tactic” in the absence of any new songs. Certainly once Waters had conceived the idea of making an album about absence – the absence of troubled founder member Syd Barrett; the absence of Waters’s soon-to-be ex-wife; and what he regarded as the absence of commitment from his bandmates – the Wish You Were Here album fell into place and Household Objects was forgotten.
1979 - Led Zeppelin was No. 1 with In Through The Out Door. The band push into new sonic territory, a good deal of this aural adventurism derived from internal tensions within the band. Jimmy Page and John Bonham were in the throes of their own addictions, leaving Plant and John Paul Jones alone in the studio to play with the bassist's new keyboard during the day. It was an album that suggests a future that never materialized for the band.
1993 - Steamboat Springs, Colorado, names their "James Brown Soul Center of the Universe Bridge" after the singer. Steamboat Springs had a contest to name an otherwise unnoticeable highway bridge north of town in 1993. Locals were sharply split. After much public debate and two elections that pitted factions such as longtime area ranchers against ski-bum newcomers, the residents voted and overwhelmingly selected “The James Brown Soul Center of the Universe Bridge,” in honor of the Godfather of Soul. (Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
2004 - Ramones guitarist Johnny Ramone (John Cummings) died. Known for his fast, high-energy guitar playing, Johnny's style consisted of rapid downstrokes and barre chord shapes. This unique playing style, combined with heavy gain from his amplifier, created the bright, buzzsaw-like sound.
2008 - Pink Floyd keyboard player and founding member Richard Wright died at age 65 from cancer. Wright's jazz influences and distinctive keyboard playing were an important part of the Pink Floyd sound.
2019 - The Cars frontman Ric Ocasek dies at 75.
Birthdays:
Abba drummer Ola Brunkert was born today in 1946.
Judah Akers of Judah and the Lion is 31.
Signe Toly Anderson founding member of Jefferson Airplane is 75.
Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein of the Misfits is 57.
On This Day In Music History is sourced from This Day in Music, Song Facts, Colorado Music Experience, Louder Sound, and Wikipedia.