1967 - The Beach Boys' production of the Smile project was halted. Brian Wilson had toiled for over a year composing and producing the album, an effort to best the Beatles in his perceived battle for pop supremacy. However, after the Beatles released their groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Wilson became discouraged and intimidated, convinced his Smile would come off as "second best." In 2011, Smile was finally released as The Smile Sessions.
1972 - Bruce Springsteen auditions for Columbia Records' John Hammond, who is the guy that signed Bob Dylan. The planned 15-minute session runs 2 hours, and the next day, Bruce records a 14-song demo. He signs with the label five weeks later.
1989 - The Cure issue a gloomy record that's predicted to be commercial suicide, but ends up being their best seller: Disintegration. It boasts their biggest hits, "Lovesong", "Lullaby", and "Pictures of You."
Fueled by copious amounts of alcohol and hallucinogenics, Robert Smith channeled his feelings into a somber album that shocked Elektra Records, who warned the result would be commercial suicide. Actually, it's the opposite. Smith incorporated flashes of light in the darkness to balance the tone of the album.
Disintegration defies the record label's dire prediction and becomes The Cure's bestselling album. But the success also irks the band's fame-loathing frontman: "I realized at this time that, despite my best efforts, we had actually become everything that I didn't want us to become: a stadium-rock band." (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
1991 - Nirvana booked into Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California for 16 days. On a budget of $65,000 and with Butch Vig producing the band started recording what would become the Nevermind album.
2004 - Total Guitar magazine's readers voted Guns N' Roses' anthem ‘Sweet Child O' Mine’ as the greatest guitar riff ever ahead of Nirvana's grunge anthem ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. Led Zeppelin's 'Whole Lotta Love' came third, followed by Deep Purple's ‘Smoke On The Water’.
2005 - Eric Clapton joined former Cream members Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce for the first of four nights at London's Royal Albert Hall 36 years after they had split up. Clapton is said to have agreed to because of the failing health of the other former members of the band.
Interesting local angle: Clapton wanted Rockmount shirts, made in Denver for the show. "At first I didn't believe it," says Scott Weil, who runs Rockmount Ranch Wear, the company founded by his grandfather. "It was a Friday night, I was about to go home and an email arrived from this rock legend asking me to get him some shirts for the big Cream reunion concert at the Royal Albert Hall. I thought it was some kind of joke," Weil says.
But it was not, and within a week he was on a plane bound for England to hand deliver a dozen "Sawtooth 640s", Clapton's favorite shirt. The guitar legend in exchange gave Weil two VIP back stage passes to the concert of a lifetime.
Birthdays:
Link Wray, famous for his 1958 hit single 'Rumble', was born on this day in 1929. Wray was credited with inventing 'fuzz' guitar after punching a hole in a speaker giving him a distorted sound. Wray is also said to have popularized "the power chord.
Engelbert Humperdinck is 86.
British-American lyricist Tony Asher (who co-wrote eight Beach Boys songs including "God Only Knows" and "Wouldn't It Be Nice") is 83.
Lesley Gore was born today in 1946. Essential song, "It's My Party."
Lily Allen is 37.
On This Day In Music History is sourced from The Times Of London, This Day in Music, Song Facts and Wikipedia