1939 - Judy Garland, 16, records "Over The Rainbow" for the movie The Wizard of Oz. "Over The Rainbow" was almost cut from the movie. Some executives from MGM thought the film was too long and wanted it removed. They thought it slowed down the action too early in the movie. The Recording Industry Association Of America called it the #1 Song Of The 20th Century. Garland considered it sacred and would perform it for the next 30 years.
1968 - Jose Feliciano performed a slow, bluesy version of "The Star Spangled Banner" before the fifth game of the World Series between the Detroit Tigers and the St. Louis Cardinals. it was not well received at the time but would open the door for later interpretations of the national anthem.
1976 - John Lennon was awarded his ‘Green Card’ - permanent residency status, at a hearing in New York which overturned previous efforts by the US Government to deport him. The three judge panel of the US Court of Appeals ruled that his 1968 arrest in Britain for possession of marijuana was "contrary to US ideas of due process and was invalid as a means of banishing the former Beatle from America."
1986 - The Police release their final single, "Don't Stand So Close To Me '86," and then call it a career. They had hoped to reunite and record another album but injury from a horse riding incident and conflict lead to Stewart Copeland declaring they can no longer work together.
Since Copeland can't play on the record, so he programs his Fairlight CMI drum machine to do the job for him. Sting prefers the way the drums sound on the more difficult-to-program Synclavier, and pushes for that instead. Copeland and Sting joust over successive days, deleting and re-recording each others' drum patterns. Although Copeland wins out, he cites the conflict as "the straw that broke the camel's back".
2008 - Spotify launches. The most-streamed song for October is "Viva La Vida" by Coldplay; for all of 2008 it's "Human" by The Killers.
While popular with listeners, musicians, not so much. Instead of paying artists directly, Spotify pays rights holders—record labels, distributors or others—who artists allow to put their music on the platform, and who in turn pay the artists with the money earned on the streaming service.
$0.0033 to $0.0054. That’s how much money Spotify paid artists (through their rights holders) per stream in 2021, according to Insider. That means it would take roughly 250 streams for an artist to earn $1.
Birthdays:
John Mellencamp is 71. One of the cornerstones of the heartland rock movement of the 1980s, John Mellencamp's most famous music is full of passion, heart, and understanding of the lives of ordinary folks living in the American Midwest, and his characters haven't change much with time, even when his music did.
Simon Cowell is 63. Record executive and producer, judge on TV shows Popstars, Pop Idol and American Idol. Notorious for his uncompromisingly harsh and controversial criticism of contestants.
Thom Yorke is 54. As the frontman for Radiohead, he provides the band with a humanistic focus: his keening, emphatic vocals balance even the group's chilliest moments. He has continued to maintain that focus in his work outside the band, whether it's through subsequent solo albums, soundtrack contributions, and original scores.
Interesting note, his left eye was paralyzed from birth and remained shut until the age of six. He underwent a total of five operations; the last operation was botched, giving him a drooping eye. He decided against further surgery: "I decided I liked the fact that it wasn't the same, and I've liked it ever since."
Nathaniel Rateliff is 44. Rateliff was born in rural Missouri, he is now based here in Denver. With a striking, emotive tenor his music runs the gamut from simple folk and Americana to roots rock & roll and vintage rhythm & blues.
The church was an enormous influence on his childhood and early teenage years. He learned to play drums at age seven, and began to teach himself guitar at 13; he wrote his first songs a couple of years later. In his early teens, he listened exclusively to Christian rock but found a copy of John Lennon's Imagine album in his father's collection. The title song haunted him and gave rise to spiritual questions and moved his music in a secular direction.
He earned critical acclaim for his quieter, more introspective folk-based albums and later bands like Born In the Flood and The Wheel. He broke out commercially in 2015 with the release of Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, the eponymous debut with his high-energy and soulful band. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Turner Sports)
Lauren Mayberry of Chvrches is 35.
Lewis Capaldi is 26.
On This Day In Music History was sourced from Forbes, This Day in Music, Song Facts Allmusic, and Wikipedia.