1970 - Led Zeppelin played a gig in Copenhagen as The Nobs after Eva Von Zeppelin - a relative of the airship designer - threatened to sue if the family name was used in Denmark.
Already unhappy that someone else was making money off her family name, Von Zeppelin criticized the group for sounding like "shrieking monkeys."
Things got even worse backstage, when a pleasant conversation over tea led to an uncomfortable gaffe. "We invited her backstage to meet us, to see how we were nice young lads," Jimmy Page later recalled. "We calmed her down but on leaving the studio, she saw our LP cover of an airship in flames and she exploded! I had to run and hide. She just blew her top."
1983 - U2 release War. Opening with the ominous, fiery protest of "Sunday Bloody Sunday," War immediately announces itself as U2's most focused and hardest-rocking album to date. The anthems ("New Year's Day," "40," "Seconds") are balanced by effective, surprisingly emotional love songs ("Two Hearts Beat as One"), which are just as desperate and pleading as his protests. U2 always aimed at greatness, but War was the first time they achieved it.
1995 - Jewel released her debut album, Pieces of You. Featuring songs with slight, simple lyrics and catchy, sweet melodies -- quite endearing. Largely recorded live, giving it a ragged and rough sound. "Who Will Save Your Soul," "You Were Meant for Me," and "Foolish Games" were all re-recorded before they became hit singles.
1996 - 22-year-old Alanis Morissette becomes the youngest artist to win the Grammy for Album of the Year when Jagged Little Pill takes the prize. She holds the record until 2010, when 20-year-old Taylor Swift nabs the title with Fearless. (Photo by Mark Davis/Getty Images)
2008 - Drummer Buddy Miles, who played with Jimi Hendrix in his last regular group, Band of Gypsys, died aged 60. Rich also played with Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, Muddy Waters and Barry White. In the 1980s, he achieved a certain amount of notoriety in the US as the vocalist on the celebrated claymation California Raisins commercials.
Birthdays:
Rolling Stone Brian Jones was born today in 1942. He was the founding member whose attitude and stage presence did a good deal to help define the Rolling Stones' image in the 1960s, and his skills on a variety of instruments lent many of their records a diversity and eclecticism that the group would never match after his departure. As Mick Jagger said at the Stones induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, " (his) peculiarities and musicianship often took us off the bluesy course with some often marvelous results".
1942 - Joe South, singer, songwriter who had the 1969 hit 'Games People Play' was born on this day. South started his career in July 1958 with the novelty hit ‘The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor’. He wrote ‘Rose Garden’, which was first released by Billy Joe Royal in 1967 and later became a 1970 hit for country music singer Lynn Anderson. South worked with Bob Dylan, (Blonde on Blonde), Simon And Garfunkel, (Sounds of Silence) and Aretha Franklin, (‘Chain of Fools’).
Cindy Wilson of the B-52s is 66. As one of the founding members Cindy Wilson was a pioneering figure on the American new wave scene of the '70s and '80s, helping to usher in a dance-friendly sound that ran counter to the strained seriousness of many of their peers.
On This Day In Music History are gathered from This Day in Music, Allmusic, Rolling Stone, Ultimate Classic Rock, Song Facts and Wikipedia.