On this day today:
1915 - Billie Holiday is born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1920 - Ravi Shankar, Hindustani classical musician and composer (and dad to Norah Jones), is born Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury in Benares, India.
1937 - R&B vocalist Charlie Thomas (of The Drifters) is born in Lynchburg, Virginia.
1943 - Rock guitarist Mick Abrahams (of Jethro Tull) is born in Luton, Bedfordshire, England.
1948 - John Oates (of Hall & Oates) is born in New York City.
1951 - Janis Ian is born Janis Eddy Fink in New York City (but will be raised in New Jersey). She writes her first song at age 12 and completes her first hit, "Society's Child," at 14.
1958 - Nat King Cole portrays famed blues musician W.C. Handy in the biographical film St. Louis Blues. The star-studded cast includes music greats Mahalia Jackson, Eartha Kitt, Ella Fitzgerald, Pearl Bailey, Cab Calloway, and 10-year-old Billy Preston as a young Will Handy.
1959 - As the snow melts in Mason City, Iowa, Buddy Holly's glasses are found from the plane crash that killed him two months earlier. They are turned in to police, where they stay until 1980, when a sheriff finds them and returns them to Holly's widow.
1968 - Three days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Nina Simone performs "Why? (The King of Love Is Dead)" at the Westbury Music Fair in Long Island, New York, in his honor. The song was written by her bassist, Gene Taylor, less than 24 hours earlier.
1968 - At the Generation Club in New York, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, B.B. King, Richie Havens and Buddy Guy take the stage for a jam session in tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr., who was killed three days earlier.
1970 - Popular songwriting team Hal David and Burt Bacharach win the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" from the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Performed by B.J. Thomas, it hit #1 on the US charts. Bacharach also takes the prize for Best Original Score for his work on the film.
1971 - The Rolling Stones announce their own record label, Rolling Stones Records, which they vow to make a "small operation we can handle" so as not to suffer the pitfalls of The Beatles' Apple Records.
1975 - After a show in Paris, Ritchie Blackmore leaves Deep Purple to form Rainbow. He is eventually replaced by Tommy Bolin.
1978 - The Police release "Roxanne" in the UK. BBC Radio 1 refuses to play it, which tanks the song, but when the band tours America a year later it catches on in that country, becoming their first hit.
1978 - Prince releases his debut album, For You. It reaches #163 in the US and contains his first Hot 100 entry: "Soft and Wet," which reaches #92.
1979 - Siouxsie And The Banshees played a charity gig for MENCAP, but after crowd trouble were latter faced with a £2,000 bill for seat damage.
1981 - Rick James releases his most successful album, Street Songs, with "Fire And Desire" and "Super Freak."
1981 - Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band kicked off their first full-scale tour in Hamburg, Germany. This was Springsteen's first tour outside North America, which would take in 10 countries.
1984 - New British Invasion: 40 of the artists on the US Top 100 singles chart are Brits - a new record.
1985 - Wham! become the first Western pop group to play in China when they perform at the Worker's Gymnasium in Beijing. Footage from their trip appears in the video for their song "Freedom."
1987 - Whitesnake slides into hair metal with their seventh, self-titled album. It's by far their most successful, with the MTV hits "Here I Go Again" and "Is This Love?"
1988 - When the piano wire that keeps him safely suspended during his gallows stunt snaps, Alice Cooper nearly hangs himself for real on stage at Wembley Arena in London. He's able to slip his chin over the rope to keep his neck from snapping until a roadie can rescue him.
1990 - Bonnie Raitt emerges from a career slump with her first #1 album, Nick Of Time, unseating Paula Abdul's Forever Your Girl.
1999 - Shania Twain's third album Come On Over is certified Diamond (10 million in sales) by the RIAA, making her the first female artist with back-to-back Diamond albums; her second album, The Woman in Me, was certified in 1997.
2003 - Avril Lavigne dominated Canada's national music awards the Junos, winning four prizes including best single, album and new artist. Shania Twain who hosted the show won three awards. Best group went to Sum 41.
2007 - Beyonce's "Beautiful Liar," featuring Latin-pop star Shakira, breaks the record for the highest leap on the Billboard Hot 100 when it jumps 91 places to #3. The record was previously held by Akon, whose "Smack That," featuring Eminem, rose from #95 to #7 (ultimately peaking at #2) in 2006.
2008 - Bob Dylan gets an honorary Pulitzer Prize for his "profound impact on popular music and American culture." He's the first rock musician to win the award.
2008 - The newly reunited Stone Temple Pilots announce a 65-date reunion tour and play for the first time since 2002.
2009 - The jukebox musical Rock of Ages, a celebration of glam metal and classic rock of the '80s, opens at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre.
2015 - Don McLean's original manuscript to his lyric for "American Pie" sells at auction for $1.2 million. Says McLean: "I thought it would be interesting as I reach age 70 to release this work product on the song 'American Pie' so that anyone who might be interested will learn that this song was not a parlor game."
2017 - Pearl Jam, Nile Rodgers, Electric Light Orchestra, Journey, Joan Baez, Tupac Shakur and Yes are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
