28 APRIL
In Music History
1981 Original T. Rex bass player Steve Currie dies in a car accident at age 33, four years after the group's lead singer Marc Bolan met his demise in a similar fashion.
1980 Tommy Caldwell (original frontman for The Marshall Tucker Band) dies at age 30 when his Jeep overturns during an accident.
1978 Cheap Trick play the first of two shows at the Budokan arena in Toyko, Japan, where the band is huge. The shows are recorded and released as the album Cheap Trick At Budokan, breaking the band in their homeland of America, with the live version of "I Want You To Want Me" becoming a huge hit.More
1976 Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band play the Grand Ole Opry at the Opryland USA theme park in Nashville. It's the first time a rock band has played the Opry since The Byrds in 1968.
1976 Bob Dylan performs "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again" live for the first time.
1975 Two ex-Beatles are on NBC: Ringo Starr performs "No No Song" on The Smothers Brothers Show; John Lennon guests on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
1975 Rock 'n Roll DJ Tom Donahue, who also formed the San Francisco-based Autumn Records, dies of a heart attack at age 46. In 1996, Donahue becomes just one of three disc jockeys to ever be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
1972 Violent J (Joseph Bruce) of Insane Clown Posse is born in Michigan.
1969 The self-titled, debut album by Chicago Transit Authority is released. For their next album, the group shortens their name to Chicago.More
1968 The Seeds guest star as "The Warts" on the "How Not To Manage A Rock Group" episode of the NBC-TV sitcom The Mothers-In-Law.
1968 Daisy Berkowitz (lead guitarist for Marilyn Manson) is born Scott Mitchell Putesky in Florida.
1967 "Mama" Cass Elliot of The Mamas & The Papas becomes a real mama, giving birth to her only child, a daughter named Owen Vanessa. Elliot doesn't name the father, but Owen later learns that it's a bass player named Chuck Day.
1966 Rapper Too Short, known for hits like "The Ghetto" and "Blow the Whistle," is born Todd Anthony Shaw in Los Angeles, California.
1965 Barbra Streisand's first television special, My Name Is Barbra, airs on CBS.
1964 Elvis Presley releases "Viva Las Vegas," the title song to his movie, which opens six weeks later.
Apple Launches iTunes Store Selling 99-Cent Songs
2003Apple launches the iTunes store, the first widely successful legal music download app, thanks to the emergence of the iPod, which lets people take their music with them. At first, the service is available only to Mac users, with the music files encoded in Apple's proprietary format (AAC) restricting where they can be played.
Read more28 APRIL
Featured Events
1998 The Dave Matthews Band release their fourth album (third on a major label), Before These Crowded Streets. Fans get a glimpse of the band's darker side with the moody lead single, "Don't Drink The Water." It debuts at #1 to sink the Titanic soundtrack.More
1990 Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses marries Erin Everly (daughter of Don Everly of The Everly Brothers) at Cupid's Inn Chapel in Las Vegas. The rocky union lasts just nine months.
1987 The Art Of Excellence by Tony Bennett becomes the first album to be initially released on CD instead of the traditional vinyl format.
1979 Blondie's "Heart Of Glass" hits #1 in America, the first of their four chart-toppers in that country.
1978 The movie FM, about a radio station with a motley collection of DJs, debuts in theaters. Linda Ronstadt, Jimmy Buffett and REO Speedwagon all appear in the film, and Steely Dan does the theme song. FM is the basis for the TV series WKRP in Cincinnati, which appears later in the year.
1973 Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon hits #1 on the Billboard Albums chart. It stays at the top for just one week, but goes on to eclipse the record for most weeks on the tally, with over 880 (non-consecutive).
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