Pick a Day

Music History Events: Incidents

January 26, 1977 Original Fleetwood Mac lead guitarist Peter Green is committed to a mental hospital after threatening an accountant with an air rifle. The accountant was trying to deliver a royalty check, which Green insisted he didn't want.

January 26, 1977 Opening for Bob Seger at a show in Tampa, Florida, Patti Smith falls off the stage, tumbling into the orchestra pit 15 feet below. She suffers a head injury and breaks her back, leaving her in traction. During her extensive rehab, she starts working on her next album, Easter.

December 3, 1976 Bob Marley is shot in the upper arm when intruders storm his house in Kingston, Jamaica, attempting to assassinate the singer. The attack was motivated by politics, as elections in Jamaica were days away and Marley was seen as supporting the ruling party. Marley made a full recovery and never had the bullet removed, as he was told that the operation could cause him to lose movement in his fingers.

November 4, 1976 A bomb threat delays the start of Bruce Springsteen's concert at the Palladium in New York; Springsteen jokes that the threat was made by former manager Mike Appel, who's currently suing him.

September 29, 1976 At his 41st birthday party, a drunk Jerry Lee Lewis attempts to shoot a soda bottle with his .357 Magnum and instead hits his bass player, Norman Owens, twice in the chest. Owens makes a full recovery.

September 1, 1976 West Coast musical impresario Lou Adler and his right-hand man, Neil Silver, are kidnapped in Los Angeles by a couple who ransom them for $25,000. The couple are caught within the week, but an accomplice flees and is never caught.

April 16, 1976 Boz Scaggs goes to visit friend Bobby "Blue" Bland backstage at the famed Antone's in Austin, Texas, and is beaten unconscious by two bouncers.

March 9, 1976 Keith Moon collapses onstage at the beginning of a Who concert at the Boston Garden.

December 28, 1975 Ted Nugent has a .44 Magnum gun pulled on him at a concert in Spokane, Washington, until the man is wrestled to the ground by security.

November 10, 1975 The SS Edmund Fitzgerald sinks suddenly in Lake Superior during a storm, killing all 29 men aboard and inspiring Canadian folkie Gordon Lightfoot to write a song about the tragedy, "Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald."

October 24, 1975 Barry Manilow's glasses are broken by the crowd as he rushes to his limo after a concert in Chicago.

September 25, 1975 Jackie Wilson has a heart attack while performing "Lonely Teardrops" at the Dick Clark "Good Ol' Rock 'n' Roll" revue in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. When he falls, he hits his head and goes into a coma for four months. He regains consciousness but suffers brain damage that leaves him unable to walk or talk. Wilson dies in 1984.

May 29, 1975 The Osmonds' appearance at Wembley Pool in London sets off a riot amongst fans.

May 18, 1975 The Bay City Rollers appear at BBC Radio "Fun Day" at the Mallory Park racetrack in Leicestershire, England, where they are set to perform on an island in the middle of a lake. When throngs of fans try to swim to the Rollers, mayhem ensues and they never get to perform.

May 13, 1974 An unlikely riot occurs at tonight's Jackson 5 concert at RFK Stadium in Washington, DC when impatient fans begin smashing bottles in the parking lot. 50 fans are injured; 43 are brought to jail.

April 25, 1974 Pamela Courson, who was Jim Morrison's girlfriend and the one who found him dead in a bathtub, dies of a heroin overdose at age 27.

February 10, 1974 Phil Spector is seriously burned in a mysterious car crash while en route from Los Angeles to Phoenix, Arizona, leading to extensive plastic surgery that furthers his reclusiveness.

January 19, 1974 Two Miami shows featuring Bob Dylan and The Band prove so popular that they cause a nine-mile-long traffic jam. Many ticket holders only get to see half of the show(s).

September 9, 1973 Following up on his plan to use the concert audience for the background vocals on the left stereo channel for his song "Sons Of 1984," Todd Rundgren records the crowd at a show in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, which is disrupted because of a pot bust. The right channel vocals came from a show in New York.

August 25, 1973 Butch Trucks, drummer for The Allman Brothers Band, crashes his car while driving in Macon, Georgia, breaking his leg in the process. This happens within sight of the spot where Duane Allman had died in a crash two years earlier.

July 29, 1973 Led Zeppelin has about $180,000 stolen from their safe at the Drake Hotel after a show at Madison Square Garden, an event chronicled in their concert documentary The Song Remains The Same.

June 1, 1973 Former Soft Machine drummer Robert Wyatt breaks his spine after attempting to leave a party by climbing down a drainpipe and falling three stories. It leaves Wyatt permanently crippled and confined to a wheelchair.

February 18, 1973 At Elvis Presley's concert in Las Vegas, four men climb on stage and try to shake his hand. They are quickly thwarted by security and Elvis' bass player Jerry Scheff. Elvis tells the crowd, "Immobilize the men using karate moves." No charges are filed. Elvis tells the audience: "I'm sorry I didn't break his goddamned neck, is what I'm sorry about."

January 20, 1973 Jerry Lee Lewis makes his first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry, telling the crowd at the end of his set: "Let me tell ya somethin' about Jerry Lee Lewis, ladies and gentlemen; I am a rock 'n' rollin', country-and-western, rhythm 'n' blues-singin' mothaf---er."

December 24, 1972 At a Manfred Mann show in Miami, police respond to noise complaints by cutting power during the band's encore, leading to a riot.

December 10, 1972 Roberta Flack and two members of her backup band are injured when her bass player totals her new Citroen near Manhattan.

July 24, 1972 Bobby Ramirez, the 24-year-old drummer with Edgar Winter's White Trash, is beaten to death in a Chicago barroom brawl after a patron complains about the length of Ramirez's hair.

April 27, 1972 24-year-old Phil King, a former booking agent for Blue Oyster Cult, is murdered over a gambling debt, inspiring the band's song "Deadline."

December 10, 1971 During a concert in London, Frank Zappa is thrown into the orchestra pit by a fan's jealous boyfriend, breaking his leg and ankle and fracturing his skull. Zappa takes months to recover.

July 31, 1971 After being denied entrance to a Who concert in New York City's Forest Hills Stadium, an ex-convict stabs and kills the security guard.