1968 - Ringo Starr quit The Beatles during The White Album sessions when the constant bickering and tension became too much for him. The news of Ringo's departure was kept secret, and he rejoined the sessions on September 3rd. After Ringo walked out, the remaining Beatles recorded "Back In the USSR", with Paul on drums and John playing bass. When Ringo returns, he's welcomed back with flowers on his drum kit.
1969 - The Beatles met at John Lennon's Tittenhurst Park home in England for their final ever photo session. Three shots from this session (by Ethan Russell) formed the front and back covers of the Capitol compilation album Hey Jude.
1970 - Creedence Clearwater Revival started a nine-week run at No. 1 on the U.S. album chart with their fifth studio album Cosmo's Factory. The name of the album comes from the warehouse in Berkeley where the band rehearsed. Bandleader John Fogerty was so insistent on practicing (nearly every day) that drummer Doug "Cosmo" Clifford began referring to the place as "the factory".
1970 - Derek and the Dominoes begin recording their famous album, Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs. The band features Eric Clapton, who in an attempt to lay low, downplays his involvement.
1986 -The movie Stand By Me is released in theaters. It's based on a novella by Stephen King called The Body, but director Rob Reiner decides to name it after the famous song, sung by Ben E. King, to play up the friendship storyline and keep it from sounding like a slasher film.
Jerry Leiber, who wrote the song with King and Mike Stoller, is thrilled to see the song used in the movie and return to the charts 25 years later, but he's not sure why Reiner used it. "The movie was about a dead body in the woods," he says. "What does 'Stand By Me' have to do with that?"
Birthdays:
John Lee Hooker was born today in 1917. "The Hook", was beloved worldwide as the king of the endless boogie, a genuine blues superstar whose droning, hypnotic one-chord grooves were at once both ultra-primitive and timeless. But John Lee Hooker recorded in a great many more styles than that over a career that stretched across more than half a century. (Photo credit should read BERTRAND GUAY/AFP via Getty Images)
Donna Godchaux is 75. Primarily known as a member in the Grateful Dead, she had also worked as a session singer in Muscle Shoals, and appeared as a backup singer on at least two No.1 hit songs: 'When a Man Loves a Woman' by Percy Sledge in 1966 and 'Suspicious Minds' by Elvis Presley in 1969.
Vernon Reid, founder and primary songwriter of the Living Color, is 64.
Roland Orzabal (Tears For Fears) is 61.
Tori Amos is 59. Amos won a full scholarship to the Peabody Institute at Johns Hopkins University at the age of five, the youngest person ever to have been admitted. She was expelled at the age of 11 for "musical insubordination".
Layne Staley, lead vocalist of Alice in Chains, was born on this day in 1967.
Wu-Tang Clan rapper GZA (aka The Genius) is 56.
On This Day In Music History was sourced from This Day in Music, Allmusic, Song Facts and Wikipedia.