1968 - The Doors' "Touch Me" is released. Doors guitarist Robby Krieger wrote this song as "Hit Me," based on fights he had with his girlfriend. In a rare show of restraint, Jim Morrison insisted on changing it to "Touch Me."
The a guitar intro was influenced by The Four Seasons' "C'mon Marianne". At the end of the song, Morrison chants "Stronger than dirt!" The line is from an Ajax commercial popular at the time where a white knight rides around destroying dirt. The last four chords of the song were also lifted from the commercial. (Photo credit should read GABRIEL BOUYS/AFP via Getty Images)
1968 - The Beatles went to No.1 on the US album chart with the The White Album the group's 12th US No.1 album. A double album, its plain white sleeve has no graphics or text other than the band's name embossed, which was intended as a direct contrast to the vivid cover artwork of the band's earlier Sgt. Pepper's.
1983 -Having made two successful dives below a friend’s yacht to find items he’d drunkenly thrown off his own boat three years before, The Beach Boys Dennis Wilson took one last dive into the Pacific and never returned from the boat moored in Marina Del Rey, California. With the help of President Reagan he was given a burial at sea, normally reserved for Naval personnel. Dennis was the only genuine surfer in The Beach Boys.
2015 - Lemmy, lead vocalist and bassist with Motörhead died at his home in Los Angeles, California, four days after his 70th birthday. Lemmy played in several groups in the 1960s, including the Rockin' Vickers and worked as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix and the Nice, before joining the space rock band Hawkwind in 1971, singing lead on their hit 'Silver Machine'.
Birthdays:
Roebuck "Pops" Staples, born on this day in 1915. A "pivotal figure in gospel in the 1960s and 1970s,"[1] he was an accomplished songwriter, guitarist and singer. He was the patriarch and member of The Staple Singers, which included his son Pervis and daughters Mavis, Yvonne, and Cleotha.
Edgar Winter is 76. Although he's often skirted the edges of blues music, at heart, saxophonist, keyboardist and composer Edgar Winter is a blues musician. Younger brother of Johnny Winter, He's a musician who's never been afraid to venture into multiple musical arenas, often times, within the space of one album.
Joseph "Ziggy" Modeliste is 74. One of the original members of the Meters. He is widely acknowledged as the innovator of a style of playing known as second-line funk.
Alex Chilton was born on this day in 1950. In a business that reinvents itself at every turn, Alex Chilton thrived for four decades with a three-fold career -- his early recordings as a blue-eyed soul vocalist with the Box Tops; the idiosyncratic, British-influenced power pop albums he did with Big Star in the mid-'70s (and after the group re-formed with a new lineup in 1993); and the spate of cool but chaotic solo albums he recorded beginning in the late '70.
In the 1980s both R.E.M., and the Replacements cited Big Star group as a major influence.
On This Day In Music History was sourced from This Day in Music, Allmusic, Classic Bands, Song Facts and Wikipedia.
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