1986 - Queen played their last live concert with Freddie Mercury at the Knebworth Park Festival in England. An audience of 120,000 heard them close out with "We Will Rock You"/"We Are The Champions" and "God Save The Queen." Mercury, who died in 1991 of complications related to AIDS, is considered one of the greatest performers in the history of rock.
1995 - Grateful Dead guitarist and singer Jerry Garcia died, he was 53. As lead guitarist in a rock environment, Jerry Garcia naturally got a lot of attention. But it was his warm, charismatic personality that earned him the affection of millions of Dead Heads. He picked up the guitar at the age of 15, played a little '50s rock and roll, then moved into the folk acoustic guitar era before becoming a bluegrass banjo player. Impressed by the Beatles and Stones, he and his friends formed a rock band called the Warlocks in late 1964 and debuted in 1965. As the band evolved from being blues-oriented to psychedelic/experimental to adding country and folk influences, his guitar stayed out front. His songwriting partnership with Robert Hunter led to many of the band's most memorable songs, including "Dark Star," "Uncle John's Band," and the group's only Top 10 hit, "Touch of Grey." Ranked 13th in Rolling Stone's "100 Greatest Guitarist's of All Time" (Photo credit should read ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
1996 - The Ramones officially broke up.
2005 - Marc Cohn survived being shot in the head during an attempted car jacking as he left a concert at the Denver Botanic Gardens. Cohn was struck in the temple by the bullet but it did not penetrate his skull. Police said a man tried to commandeer Cohn's tour van as it left after a show, the attacker was fleeing police after trying to pay a hotel bill with a stolen credit card.
2007 - Baltimore's mayor Sheila Dixon proclaimed this day as the city's official Frank Zappa Day, citing Zappa's musical accomplishments as well as his defense of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
2008 - In an interview with the Calgary Herald, Full House actor Dave Coulier claims he's the subject of his ex-girlfriend Alanis Morissette's hit 1995 song "You Oughta Know." Morissette won't confirm or deny the mystery man's identity, but tells Entertainment Weekly: "Fifty-five people can take credit for that song, and I'm always curious about why they're doing it. But Dave is the most public about it."
Birthdays:
Rapper Kurtis Blow is 62. He was an influence on Blondie's "Rapture" and the Tom Tom Club's "Wordy Rappinghood."
Whitney Houston was born today in 1963. She passed away in 2012 at 48 years old.
On This Day In Music History was sourced from This Day in Music, Song Facts and Wikipedia.