1966 - The Beatles played their last concert before a paying audience, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California to a sold-out crowd of 25,000. John and Paul, knowing what the fans do not (that this will be the last concert ever) bring cameras on stage and take pictures between songs. During this tour, The Beatles have not played a single song from their latest album, Revolver. They finished the show with a version of Little Richard's 'Long Tall Sally'.
1970 - The gender-bending single "Lola" by The Kinks was released. The song details a romantic encounter between a young man and a person he meets in a club in Soho, London, with the narrator describing his confusion towards a person named Lola who "walked like a woman and talked like a man".
1977 - Three people were arrested in Memphis after trying to steal Elvis' body. As a result, his remains would be later moved to Graceland.
1991 - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers kicked off their world tour in support of Into the Great Wide Open at Fiddler's Green.
The audience view wasn't of your typical rock show. An elaborate set design featured a large, storybook-styled tree with a staircase leading down to the stage, along with dangling chandeliers.
"It's been maybe two years since we played in front of people," Petty told MTV at the time, "so I'm kinda jazzed up right now."
But on the tour's first night, Petty was so ill that his manager had to coax him into performing. "That's all part of life on the road," guitarist Mike Campbell said. "The show must go on and all that." ("I was just up all night and didn't sleep," Petty assured, "I think I'm okay now.")
Were you there?
1994 - Oasis release their debut album, Definitely Maybe. The record goes on to sell over a million copies in the US, spearheading a second British Invasion, but for now the band remain unknown outside of the UK.
Oasis offer an alternative to the current rock zeitgeist. Unlike many in the grunge movement, they want to be stars – and unlike most other British bands at the time, they are proud of their heritage and shamelessly borrow ideas (and sometimes whole melodies) from bands like The Beatles, The Kinks and T-Rex.
Definitely Maybe winds up a rare thing: it has the foundation of a classic album wrapped in the energy of a band who can't conceive a future beyond the sunset. (Photo credit should read JOERG KOCH/DDP/AFP via Getty Images)
Birthdays:
Sterling Morrison, guitarist for The Velvet Underground, was born today in 1942. One of the five members of the band who made the group's first album. He was an important part of the band's sound, however, as a more conventional counterpart to the more experimental playing of the group's other guitarist, Lou Reed.
Michael Jackson was born today in 1958. Michael Jackson wasn't merely the biggest pop star of his era, shaping the sound and style of the 1970s and '80s; he was one of the defining stars of the 20th century, a musician who changed the contours of American culture.
A preternaturally gifted singer and dancer, Jackson first rose to stardom in 1969 as the 11-year-old frontman for his family's band, the Jackson 5. Then came the solo career and Thriller, the 1982 album that shattered every music record on the books.
R.I.P.:
1976 - Jimmy Reed died in San Francisco. There's simply no sound in the blues as easily digestible, accessible, instantly recognizable, and as easy to play and sing as the music of Jimmy Reed. His best-known songs -- "Bright Lights, Big City," "Honest I Do," "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby," and "Big Boss Man" -- have become such an integral part of the standard blues repertoire, it's almost as if they have existed forever. Because his style was simple and easily imitated, his songs were accessible to just about everyone from high-school garage bands having a go at it, to Elvis Presley, Charlie Rich, Lou Rawls, Hank Williams, Jr., and the Rolling Stones, making him, in the long run, perhaps one of the most influential bluesman of all.
2021 - Lee "Scratch" Perry, a transgressive reggae musician who produced albums for Bob Marley, The Clash, and many others, dies at 85.
A notoriously eccentric figure whose storied reputation and colorful personality match the sheer strangeness of much of his recorded output, Lee "Scratch" Perry is unquestionably one of reggae's most innovative, influential artists. His recording techniques, from his early use of samples to hallucinatory echo and reverb effects, set the stage for generations of musical experimentation, particularly throughout electronic music and alternative/post-punk, and his free-association vocal style is a clear precedent for rap.
On This Day In Music History was sourced from This Day in Music, ,Ultimate Classic Rock,, Song Facts and Wikipedia.
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