1966 - The Beatles started recording the new John Lennon song 'I'm Only Sleeping' at Abbey Road studios. The song features the then-unique sound of a reversed guitar duet played by George Harrison. (Photo by Getty Images)
1968 - Simon and Garfunkel release "Mrs. Robinson." Simon began writing this as "Mrs. Roosevelt," ( former first lady) and had just the line, "Here's to you, Mrs. Roosevelt" when he changed it to "Mrs. Robinson" for The Graduate.
Art Garfunkel had heard Simon working on "Mrs. Roosevelt," and mentioned this to Nichols, who realized the title had the same number of syllables as "Mrs. Robinson." Desperate for a song, Nichols asked Simon to change it to "Mrs. Robinson" and write the rest of it. Simon decided to give it a shot.
According to Art Garfunkel, this song may never have been recorded had it not been for The Graduate director Mike Nichols, who asked the duo for songs for his film. Garfunkel said that at the time, the tune was "A trifle song we were about to throw out," but when Nichols heard this early version, he heard something in it and asked Simon to adapt it for the film.
1976 - After a trip to Moscow, David Bowie was detained 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 he was released after a few hours.
1987 - U2 make the cover of Time magazine with the headline "Rock's Hottest Ticket." Island Records released the band's latest album "The Joshua Tree" and a single "With or Without You" in March 1987 and soon, both were sprinting up the charts. It was the moment where U2 moved from being the "biggest underground act in the world" to finally making a connection with the American audience; and that meant unprecedented record sales.
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.
He was hanging on a “gnarled low tree that was basically a horizontal branch,” according to Ultimate Classic Rock. He was drying off after having gone for a swim; when he went climbing down, his hands were sandy, and he couldn’t get a proper grip on the next branch down.
“There was another branch in front of me, and I thought, ‘I’ll just grab hold of that and drop gently to the ground,'” he wrote in Life. “But I forgot that my hands were still wet and there was sand and everything on them, and as I grabbed this branch, the grip didn’t take. And so I landed hard on my heels, and my head went back and hit the trunk of the tree. Hard. And that was it.”
He was subsequently rushed to New Zealand to be operated on. It turns out he had intracranial hemorrhaging. And once again, he lived to tell the tale...
Birthdays:
Casey Kasem, DJ and the voice of Shaggy on Scooby-Doo, was born on this day in 1932.
Ann Peebles (1973 hit single "I Can't Stand The Rain") is 75.
Kate Pierson of The B-52's is 74.
Paul "Ace" Frehley of Kiss is 71.
Sheena Easton is 63.
Supergrass keyboard player Rob Coombes is 50.
On This Day In Music History is sourced from Far Out Magazine, This Day in Music, BBC, Song Facts and Wikipedia.