1961 - Bob Dylan appeared on Harry Belafonte's album The Midnight Special, playing harmonica on the title track. Dylan was paid a $50 session fee for this his first-ever recording.
1968 - The Beatles' new company, Apple Records, turned down an offer to sign a new artist by the name of David Bowie.
"Apple Records is not interested in signing David Bowie. The reason is that we don't feel he's what we're looking for at the moment."
Despite being started with the best of intentions, Apple has been described as unorganized and eventually lost a ton of money. A further complication was that the label would only recruit new talent with the agreement of all four (endlessly squabbling) Beatles.
1976 - With rumors of a Beatles reunion swirling, Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels went on camera to offer the guys $3,000 (union scale, "divide it anyway you want, if you want to give Ringo less, that's up to you...") to reunite on the show. Paul McCartney and John Lennon were watching at Lennon's New York City apartment and considered showing up on a lark, but passed up the opportunity. This was the last time Lennon and McCartney were together.
1989 - Initially rejected by his label, the Tom Petty album Full Moon Fever is finally released, the first credited to him as a solo artist. Studio executives claimed they didn't hear a hit and refused to put it out. A few months later, new management takes over and thinks it's a great record.
Now the distinction between "solo" and "Heartbreakers" is a fuzzy one because Full Moon Fever does feature some of the band. But with Jeff Lynne ( ELO ) co-writing and producing the album, it has a different feel. Petty's roots rock becomes clean and glossy, layered with shimmering vocal harmonies, keyboards, and acoustic guitars. But it's loaded with some of his best songs since Damn The Torpedoes. Full Moon Fever might have been meant as an off-the-cuff detour, ( it was original going to be titled "Songs From the Garage"). but it turned into a minor masterpiece. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)
Birthdays:
Barbra Streisand is 81. As a singer, Streisand's rise was remarkable not only because her popularity was achieved in the face of a dominant musical trend -- rock & roll -- which she did not follow, but also because she used her vocal skills as a stepping stone to other careers, as a stage and film actress and as a film director.
Doug "Cosmo" Clifford, drummer with Creedence Clearwater Revival, is 78. The CCR album, "Cosmo's Factory", was named after him. The warehouse in Berkeley where the band rehearsed early in their career, was was dubbed "The Factory" by Clifford, because bandleader John Fogerty made them practice there almost every day. In 2013, Clifford recalled to Goldmine that "John knew the press would be all over us for the album, so he said that he would name the album after me and that I would have to deal with it."
Nigel Harrison of Blondie is 72. He was also an uncredited session bassist for The Runaways debut album. He was recruited to Blondie from Nite City (former The Doors' keyboardist Ray Manzarek's short-lived band) in 1977
On This Day In Music History was sourced from This Day in Music, Far Out Magazine, Beatles Faq, Allmusic, Ultimate Classic Rock, Song Facts and Wikipedia.