1968 - Eric Clapton jams with Buffalo Springfield members Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Jim Messina and Richie Furay at the Topanga Canyon home of Stills' girlfriend. Neighbors call the cops, and all but Stills (who escapes through a window) are charged with suspicion of marijuana use. Clapton beats the rap; Young, Messina and Furay are found guilty and fined.
1969 -John Lennon and Yoko Ono were married in a 10-minute ceremony in Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory on Spain's south coast. The duo wanted to get married in France, at first, but were unsuccessful. These events were documented in The Beatles song "The Ballad of John and Yoko," where he wrote: "Finally made the plane into Paris / Honeymooning down by the Seine / Peter Brown called to say / You can make it OK / You can get married in Gibraltar near Spain." They spent their honeymoon in Amsterdam campaigning for an international "Bed-In" for peace.
1971 - Janis Joplin started a two week run at No.1 with her version of the Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster song 'Me And Bobby McGee.' Joplin, who was a friend of Kristofferson's from the beginning of her career to her death, changed the sex and a few of the lyrics in her cover. Kristofferson states he did not write this song for her, but the song is associated with her - especially, he has said, in the line 'Somewhere near Salinas, Lord, I let her slip away.' Joplin died of a drug overdose the year before on 4th October, aged 27.
1990 - Sinéad O'Connor releases I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. It was her breakthrough featuring the stunning Prince cover "Nothing Compares 2 U". But even its remarkable intimacy wasn't adequate preparation for the harrowing confessionals that composed the majority of the album. The songs mostly address relationships with parents, children, and (especially) lovers, through which O'Connor weaves a stubborn refusal to be defined by anyone but herself.
The album plays like a tour de force in its demonstration of everything O'Connor can do: dramatic orchestral ballads, intimate confessionals, catchy pop/rock, driving guitar rock, and protest folk, not to mention the nearly six-minute a cappella title track. (Photo by Getty Images)
1989 - The Pixies release "Monkey Gone To Heaven". It was the first song released from the album, Dolittle. Rolling Stone's David Fricke said "Monkey Gone to Heaven" was "a corrosive, compelling meditation on God and garbage".
1991 - Eric Clapton's 4-year-old son Conor died after falling out of a window at his mother's apartment. Clapton later wrote "Tears In Heaven" about Conor.
As he later told Ed Bradley during a 1999 interview with 60 Minutes, wanting to be a good father to his son was what ultimately prompted Clapton to get sober.
"When he was born, I was drinking, and he was really the chief reason that I went back to treatment, because I really did love this boy," he recalled. "I thought, 'I know he's a little baby, but he can see what I'm doing, and I'm tired of this.'"
2009 - The quirky garden store Fountains Of Wayne, which provided the moniker for the band of that name, closes shop after more than 40 years in business. The Wayne, New Jersey, landmark was a Christmas hotspot, as giant santas and holiday displays appeared every season. It was also the backdrop for some scenes from the HBO series The Sopranos.
Birthdays:
Lee “Scratch” Perry was born today in 1936. 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 sets a clear precedent for rap.
Carl Palmer, drummer for Emerson, Lake and Palmer (and let's not forget Asia), is 74. Inspired by his idols like Buddy Rich and Art Blakey, he would go one to be one of the best drummers of the progressive rock boom of the late 60s, early 70s.
Jimmie Vaughan of the Fabulous Thunderbirds is 73. He co-led the Fabulous Thunderbirds (helping to open up roadhouse blues to a national audience) with vocalist Kim Wilson between 1979 and 1987. In 1990, he and younger brother Stevie Ray Vaughan cut Family Style. Since then he's released a number of favorably received solo albums.
On This Day In Music History was sourced, copied, pasted, edited, curated, and occasionally woven together with my own crude prose, from This Day in Music, Music This Day, Allmusic, Song Facts and Wikipedia.
KBCO